This email’s accusations (if true I have independent confirmation now, title changed to reflect this – Anthony) is quite something, it illustrates the disturbing lengths a university will go to suppress ideas they don’t agree with. So much for academic freedom at Macquarie University.

Remarks from several make it clear that Macquarie University
is comfortable with openly disclosing the state of affairs,
if not distorting them to its convenience. So be it.

Macquarie’s liberal disclosure makes continued reticence unfeasible.
In response to queries is the following, a matter of record:

1. In 2008, I was recruited from the US by “Macquarie University”,
with appointment as Professor, under a national employment contract with
regulatory oversight, and with written agreement that Macquarie would provide
specified resources to enable me to rebuild my research program in Australia.
Included was technical support to convert several hundred thousand lines of computer code,
comprising numerical models and analyses (the tools of my research),
to enable those computer programs to operate in Australia.

2. With those contractual arrangements, I relocated to Australia.
Upon attempting to rebuild my research program, Macquarie advised that
the resources it had agreed to provide were unavailable. I was given an excuse for why.
Half a year later, I was given another excuse. Then another.
Requests to release the committed resources were ignored.

3. Three years passed before Macquarie produced even the first major component
of the resources it had agreed to provide. After five years of cat-and-mouse,
Macquarie has continued to withhold the resources that it had committed.
As a result, my computer models and analyses remain inoperative.

4. A bright student from Russia came to Macquarie to work with me.
Macquarie required her to abandon her PhD scholarship in Russia.
Her PhD research, approved by Macquarie, relied upon the same computer
models and analyses, which Macquarie agreed to have converted but did not.

5. To remedy the situation, I petitioned Macquarie through several avenues provided
in my contract. Like other contractual provisions, those requests were ignored.
The provisions then required the discrepancy to be forwarded to the Australian employment tribunal,
the government body with regulatory oversight.

The tribunal then informed me that Macquarie had not even registered my contract.
Regulatory oversight, a statutory protection that Macquarie advised would govern
my appointment, was thereby circumvented. Macquarie’s failure to register
rendered my contract under the national employment system null and void.

6. During the protracted delay of resources, I eventually undertook the production
of a new book – all I could do without the committed resources to rebuild my research program.
The endeavor compelled me to gain a better understanding of greenhouse gases
and how they evolve. Preliminary findings from this study are familiar to many.

8. Under the resources Macquarie had agreed to provide, arrangements were made
to present this new research at a scientific conference and in a lecture series at
research centers in Europe.

9. Forms for research travel that were lodged with Macquarie included a description
of the findings. Presentation of our research was then blocked by Macquarie.
The obstruction was imposed after arrangements had been made at several venues
(arranged then to conform to other restrictions imposed by Macquarie).
Macquarie’s intervention would have silenced the release of our research.

10. Following the obstruction of research communication, as well as my earlier efforts
to obtain compliance with my contract, Macquarie modified my professional duties.
My role was then reduced to that of a student teaching assistant: Marking student papers
for other staff – junior staff.

I objected, pursuant to my appointment and provisions of my contract.

11. In February 2013, Macquarie then accused me of “misconduct”,
cancelling my salary. It blocked access to my office, computer resources,
even to personal equipment I had transferred from the US.

My Russian student was prohibited from speaking with me.
She was isolated – left without competent supervision
and the resources necessary to complete her PhD investigation,
research that Macquarie approved when it lured her from Russia.

12. Obligations to present our new research on greenhouse gases (previously arranged),
had to be fulfilled at personal expense.

13. In April, The Australian (the national newspaper), published an article which
grounded reckless claims by the so-called Australian Climate Commission:

Two of the six-member Australian Climate Commission are Macquarie staff.
Included is its Chief Commissioner.

14. While I was in Europe presenting our new research on greenhouse gases,
Macquarie undertook its misconduct proceedings – with me in absentia.
Macquarie was well informed of the circumstances. It was more than informed.

15. Upon arriving at Paris airport for my return to Australia, I was advised that
my return ticket (among the resources Macquarie agreed to provide) had been cancelled.
The latest chapter in a pattern, this action left me stranded in Europe,
with no arrangements for lodging or return travel.
The ticket that had been cancelled was non-refundable.

17. When I eventually returned to Australia, I lodged a complaint with the
Australian employment tribunal, under statutes that prohibit retaliatory conduct.

18. In May 2013, while the matter was pending before the employment tribunal,
Macquarie terminated my appointment.

19. Like the Australian Climate Commission, Macquarie is a publically-funded enterprise.
It holds a responsibility to act in the interests of the public.

20. The recent events come with curious timing, disrupting publication of our research
on greenhouse gases. With correspondence, files, and computer equipment confiscated,
that research will now have to be pursued by Macquarie University’s “Climate Experts”.

Find a good contract lawyer, and sue them out of office. As individuals, and as a corporate body. This is disgraceful behaviour in a public body, and the fact they think that as it is possible to pull it off without repercussions is presumably because they are dealing with “foreigners” makes it all the more dispicable.

Wow. I’ve been following Salby’s work. I guess we know why he hasn’t made more progress- active institutional resistance. Hard to believe it’s this blatant. Will be interested in hearing how this unfolds.

Holy Farck. This is the pinnacle of madness. “Do as we wish”. All of it executed in a slippery and cowardly…..and premeditated….fashion. Dr. Salby, you have all of our sympathy…and even more of our rage at the petty machine that you attempted to counter. I call Bullsh*t. Who else?

Its a modern day version of Deutsche Physik – the lunatic parody of science set up in the 1930s by a country which couldn’t accept that the world’s greatest living physicist was a Jew. A systematic attempt to eliminate academic dissent, by removing academics whose views deviate from the accepted groupthink.

What has happened to Professor Salby is shocking! Absolutely he should sue, AND get it into the public eye. I hope the Professor not only contacts a good lawyer, but also newspapers, blogs, whatever and whoever will run with it.

What an appalling way for a university to act! I never thought I’d be ashamed to be Australian.

The purpose of climate science is becoming quite evident, to extort money from the gullible public. Too many people enjoy the good life by keeping the general public in the dark.
If Eisenhower was around, an “I told you so” would be quite in order.

Very shoddy work by the university but not I fear an isolated incident with Prof Bob Carter also being effectively sacked by my home town university (James Cook University) dropping him for his stances on Climate Change. See http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/article/2013/06/28/384514_news.html
Pretty sad when you see this sort of stuff happening in Australia, I am ashamed as an Australian to see anyone being treated this badly by a university.

This proves again beyond any doubt the totalitarian nature of these people. Shame, deep, deep shame… And of course, it is a fairly clear indication that Salby’s work is ready to blow up their carefully crafted lie.

You clearly have claims under: contract law (both using promissory estoppel — you reasonably relied on their promise and acted to your detriment — and strict breach of K provisions) and administrative law (clear violation of due process (no notice and no hearing (with you present!)) and possibly tort (interference with contract performance). Only someone well-versed in Australian law could know the likelihood of success (he or she will likely say, no matter what, “50-50,” lol). The attention and publicity your lawsuit (whatever its chance of success) would bring to the underlying scientific facts (AND the clearing of your reputation!) gives it value even if you are not “made whole” by any damage award (as if they could EVER fully compensate you for all the distress they have caused you (head shake)).

You deserve the financial support of everyone on the side of Truth in Science who can afford to do so. IS THERE A LEGAL DEFENSE FUND FOR MR. SALBY? There ought to be. If anyone has the ability to set one up and publicize it here and elsewhere, please help this fine science hero.

Professor Salby needs to get legal, first thing is to take out an injunction preventing the loss of his research and equipment. I hope he has a work permit and is registered as living there, if so, he should join up with his assistant and take legal remedy to its conclusion.

Not one bit surprised. The AGW driven climate change drum is beating continuously here in the “Lucky” country. Well, it has to, Rudd (Erless) wants to take an ETS to the election. In a recent poll, 65% of those interviewed believed emissions of CO2 were driving the climate to change in a bad way and we should “de-carbonise” our economy. It’s rather funny as I’d imagine most of those polled would have been contacted by mobile phone or online.

I have one theory as regards to Australia becoming ‘ground zero for AGW quackpottery’, that it’s a relatively small country that is also relatively rich, especially in mineral and energy resources, but also agriculture, and a large amount of taxpayers money made from these has been routinely diverted towards environmental agendas-particularly within academia-for many years (because these usually don’t make any money on their own), but which has resulted in a whole lot of opportunistic academics who don’t have to answer to reality, so they just get more and more out of touch and corrupt as time goes on. Australian greens get around 5-10% of the vote, but the proportion of academics and journalists who vote green is much higher. They have learned that there is good money to be made out of siphoning off other people’s hard earned money, such as the farming, mining and oil and gas industries.

Eric Worrall says: “Its a modern day version of Deutsche Physik – the lunatic parody of science set up in the 1930s by a country which couldn’t accept that the world’s greatest living physicist was a Jew. A systematic attempt to eliminate academic dissent, by removing academics whose views deviate from the accepted groupthink.”

It’s interesting and possibly instructive that the Nazi hierarchy, once their agenda had been achieved, kicked Herren Dr. Professor Stark and Lenard under the bus.

Macquarie is not Australia. Hold your heads high, all you liberty-loving Aussies. Those of us on the side of truth can clearly see who the real Australians are. Envirostalinists have invaded every agency of every major country in the free world. They will not win.

Now, hum a few bars of “Waltzing Matilda,” think of all those Australian WWII heroes, and PERSEVERE. Truth WILL win.

This is one side of the story, it would be interesting to hear what Macquarie University has to say, although they probably have more restrictions on what they are allowed to say about their staff, or if there is any independent verification. If Murry’s version is even remotely correct this is likely to end up in court meaning more information should become public. In fact, it seems very strange that if he found out in 2008 that he didn’t have a proper contact and did not get resources to do any research, he still hung around for five years.

One thing to note is that according to Murry this conflict started immediately when he arrived back in 2008, and as far as I know he had said nothing controversial about AGW at that point, so whatever caused this, it’s doubtful it has got anything to do with his current eccentric views on the carbon cycle. Checking the history of the web page for the department staff I noticed that professor Rob Harcourt also just disappeared so there may have been some larger cutbacks.

Amazing what can happen under the cover of Godwin’s Law! None dare call it you-know-what. (See what I mean?) C.S. Lewis wrote about an unholy alliance between the academy and government in his fabulous novel, That Hideous Strength. Dr. Salby’s story is strongly reminiscent of the evil machinations it describes. This kind of insitutional evil should become the nucleus of the next John Grisham blockbuster!

NOT surprised. Macquarie University excluded me from my own invention, filed a provisonal patent application without informing, gave my inttelectual property to others to commercialise (+ a research grant) who seemingly only attempted too modify the invention for personal gain (and completely failed), Eventually denied any wrongdoing and returned the IP to me as that was all OK now and I should have nothing to complain about. This university has a lot to be ashamed about. I am sure there are many who have been treated just this way.

Whatever you do; preserve the original email thought to be fro Murry Salby; with all its headers. Message headers tell an important story. They contain important forensic information for further investigation.

This leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth. 5 years of this man’s life made a misery (not to menton that of his poor phd student) by deliberate obstruction and breaking of the law. Why did they take him on in the first place if they were so anti his views? It sounds as though it was a strategy evolved to silence dissent. I know we are mocked for conspiracy theories, but why would they lure Dr (Murry, by the way – typo in heading) Salby to Oz, then not come up with the funds for his research and not register his contract? From then on it seems downhill all the way. And five year’s of research lost, five year’s of this man’s life deliberately made unpleasant following a massive move and change of lifestyle embarked upon with enthusiasm. And, having been so systematically stymied, what chances has he now of re-employment in academia?

Sue the socks off them. It’s outrageous behaviour and should not go unpunished.

Is that man, Tim Flannery, who said people would leave Perth because they would run out of water, that our dams would never be full again, who caused hundred of millions of dollars of taxpayers money to be wasted on desalination plants, who warned of catastrophic sea level rise and then bought a water front home, who engineered the totally despicable treatment of a real climate scientist, Murry Salby, still working at Macquarie?

If so, shame on you all. I hope Murry Salby sues the pants of the university. As it is, Macquarie is a worldwide laughing stock.

It is a shame how Macquarie university did handle this case. One may have differences in opinion, as is often the case for academic topics, but the way they handled this is as unademic as possible: pure dictatorial, suppressing any disagreement with the so called “consensus”.

Not that I agree with point 7 of the long list, as the current increase is unprecedented in the past 800 kyears. Salby’s opinion on ice cores is based on a purely theoretical occurance of CO2 diffusion in ice cores which in reality doesn’t exist.

They are entering stage four, where they actively suppress dissenting views, However problematic it is for the hero Murry Salby , it is a plus for us dedicated anti warmists. People, the punters in OZ speak,, will see it for what it is. It’s not a very pleasant Is.

“Murry Salby was apparently professor for five years. Does anyone know of any scientific papers that he wrote (published or not) in that time?”

Try reading… his whole research project was stoped by the move and then blocked from starting back up again. He states this in the letter. Then goes on to state he is writing and book…. reading its for kids.

I don’t think “crackpottery” is quite the word for what Macquarie appear to be doing. Crackpottery means harmless eccentricity, and presents no threat to anyone, at least not knowingly. Macquarie, on the other hand, appear to be carrying out deliberate, targeted, vicious attacks on the academic freedom of Dr. Salby and his Russian student – possibly other individuals too, who knows?

We shouldn’t be so accommodating of this sort of behaviour on behalf of the Macquaries of the world. The cheap politicking of these intellectual dwarves should be blogged LOUDLY all over the net, and organisations supporting truth – Heartland, GWPF, whoever – need to swing in and offer full support for Dr. Salby in suing Macquarie for as many as possible of their uneducational activities. Drag them into the spotlight and shred them.

Irrespective of the science, this is a disgraceful way for a university to treat any academic, let alone a guest of the country. I sincerely hope that McQuarrie’s attempt to silence and exile Dr Salby will back-fire, and his ground breaking research gets the attention it deserves. Salby’s scientific approach and findings obviously scared the crap out of the alarmist establishment, such that they had to thwart him at every opportunity and prevent publication. I hope first that he can secure access to his data, and then find employment and a good base to continue his work and get it published. There must be some universities left where they still practice science with integrity and have a genuine ethical approach to their employees? Or as it seems the case with McQuarrie, have they all been taken over by dogmatic cult psyientists who can’t even contemplate the possibility that AGW is not a serious problem after all?

I sympathize, Murray. I do because I am familiar with situations such as these and, sadly, far worse. Mobbing in the workplace is common place in the academia and I have direct experience regarding universities in four continents. Sabotaging classes, using students as weapons, personal harassment, etc. There are those that recommend legal action and I too think it is the correct way to proceed. However, it demands a degree of self-sacrifice that few can muster. Don’t put yourself in that position unless you are confident you can go the distance. You’ve already paid for the mistake of accepting a fraudulent contract and have been made to waste years of precious research. Are you sure you can take more damage? The awful truth is that, even if you can find the actual person(s) behind this, they will hide behind the institution and nothing whatsoever will come to them, no matter what. Protected by that impregnability, they will be formidable enemies. Best of luck.

Nick, Anthony and temp, did any of you bother to actually check if Salby has published any articles? As a matter of fact he did publish some papers on the ozone layer such as
“Rebound of Antarctic ozone”, GRL, Volume 38, Issue 9, 16 May 2011
“Changes of the Antarctic ozone hole: Controlling mechanisms, seasonal predictability, and evolution”, JGR Volume 117, Issue D10, 27 May 2012.

REPLY: According to his summary at McQuarrie, his last publication was 2008.

Heh, I thought Australia was a Constitutional State, with Rule of Law & all. Apparently not.
******************************************************************************************
Only a Part Constitution as such but we are supposed to have rule of law but again, Australia is a Marxist left wing totalitarian country after six years of Rudd – Gillard – Rudd. We were halfway Marxist even while Howard was Prime Minister but it has nearly gone all the way now. Universities are as Marxist as you can get, I bet they even put USSR Uni’s of the 80’s to shame. Government – Uni’s hand in hand leads to corruption and shenanigans like this story.
If anyone wants to review history they should look at the days of Rum Economy and Rum Rebellion of over 200 years ago. Nothing has changed.

This outrage is being taken up at the highest political level here in Australia. An influential section of the media has also been informed. It is a blight on the proud history of Australian scientific integrity and, if all the facts are as stated, cannot be allowed to stand.

“Nick, sometimes I think your head is up your arse. This is one of those times. How could he publish in that sort of environment? – Anthony”
At least for the first three years, the complaint seems to be that the Uni didn’t provide technical assistance for “converting” (whatever that means) a program of some hundreds of thousands of lines to work in Australia. We don’t actually speak different computer languages here. But anyway, that should not leave him unable to write anything at all. He was on a full-time salary.

It’s actually a real question. One of my puzzles about the Salby theories, is that I’ve seen nothing recent from him in writing at all – not even a blog post. I’m always being told to listen to a podcast to a political group, or lately a DVD.

Australia has its own unique climatic cycles, (which have course have been noted for the two centuries since Anglo-Saxon settlement) but these cycles are slow and the recent long, dry period was played perfectly by the Warmists who could point to heatwaves, forest fires, and drought on a daily basis to reinforce their Scare Story.
Of course that cycle ended a couple of years back, the rivers are full and the area in drought is very much reduced, but you won’t hear much about that…yesterday Western Australia had its coldest spell in 50 years and today Tasmania recorded an ‘all time’ record of Minus 12 C….
but the state sponsored ABC will keep that pretty quiet.

Please feel free to send messages to the Dean of Science
I have copied my email to him below for inspiration ;)
@Nick Stokes – Do you want 3 abstracts
BTW I have an original email from Salby if there are any forensic checks to be done.

———————————————
to dean.science@mq.edu.au
Dear Sir
I would like you to be aware that a large number of my friends and colleagues are outraged by the way Murry Salby claims that he has been treated by the University. If his claims are true you should take action to remedy the situation without fear or favour.

Universities have to stand up against political bullying.

Even if you do not believe Prof Salby’s conclusions, there is no excuse for this sort of treatment.

This leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth. 5 years of this man’s life made a misery (not to menton that of his poor phd student) by deliberate obstruction and breaking of the law. Why did they take him on in the first place if they were so anti his views? It sounds as though it was a strategy evolved to silence dissent. I know we are mocked for conspiracy theories, but why would they lure Dr (Murry, by the way – typo in heading) Salby to Oz, then not come up with the funds for his research and not register his contract?
****************************************************************************************************
That is an old trick. Macquarie were probably contacted by an overseas institution. They agreed to take Salby and set him up then leave him hanging. The Russian student is collateral damage. Hope the right people can get on this and sue them for millions. However that will be difficult also since the justice system is full of Marxists also in cahoots with the government and universities. Sad state of affairs in this once half decent country.

Completely operations normal for Australia. This sort of behavior is common at all levels of Australian society from small sporting organisations to the Federal government. There is no rule of law, just what the people running things want it to be at the time.

We used to be a rich country with a relatively small population, but Argentina, here we come!

This looks really bad but may not be. Perhaps Macquarie Uni Admin would like to comment.
An opinion from a QC and straight to equity would be a path. This would ensure the examination of all the claims in a fair and honest manner.
As members of my family have been to this Uni, I would not like their qualifications devalued by lack,or the appearance of lack, of probity and fairness in treatment of one of their staff.

I pre-ordered his book when he announced it and have a copy that I am trying to find time to read. I am sure legal action is probably the right way to go, or possibly tribunal, but it is expensive to take legal action and Prof. Salby may not have enough funds to do so. You could all help by BUYING HIS BOOK. Lets make it the worlds first technical book to become a best seller!

FWIW, I would contribute to a legal fund if it can be setup. His research may turn out to be wrong, or it may turn out to be ground-breaking. Either way, it needs to continue to a conclusion. My ire was originally raised around 2000 because of the “consensus” and “science is settled” nonsense. It is only by rejecting the kind of closed minds that persecuted Galileo that science and man-kind will progress.

Professor Salby will have to take this up with MacQuarie University. There are procedures in any University for handling grievances. It would be unwise though to assume it is entirely a consequence of his views on climate change – Australian Universities have been under budgetary pressure for several years and even the top rank ones like Sydney and Melbourne have been shedding staff.

I must say though that I find one part of his letter less than convincing. He stated that he needed technical support to convert computer program to run in Australia. I am familiar with Australian computer centers as I have to use them myself. Their machines are all absolutely standard, with standard hardware and standard operating systems. If his codes ran on a machine in the USA, then they would run on machines in Australia. So the resources he was expecting must have been something else, which he has not detailed.

However if his contract was not registered properly, then MacQuarie’s admin screwed up badly somewhere, so that sound like an avenue which could be followed.

In one of his last letters to Max Born, Einstein wrote (in German, translated here):
“Earning a living should have nothing to do with the quest for knowledge.”
Government funding perverts, corrupts, and ruins everything it touches, including science.
Imprison bureaucrats now, or prepare for catastrophe.

I’ve seen enough of university politics to advance the opinion that Salby’s original woes regarding funding probably had nothing to do with his views on anything. What’s far more likely is that the offer was originally made to him without the department in question having properly allocated and ring-fenced the funding. All that is needed then is for the money to be needed elsewhere and for senior staff to have a callous attitude to ‘stars’ that they have already ‘captured’. (I’ve seen this happen for real.)

After his ‘journey to the dark side’ was probably when things turned nasty.

This is a watershed moment in the climate debate. Salby has clearly been thwarted by the bad faith (and probably actionable) behaviour of Macquerie university.

I think we should give Murray Salby some practical financial support to assist him in fighting Macquerie University and helping him relocate to a more suitable academic environment. Perhaps Dick Lindzen still wields some influence in MIT?

Or will we find all academic institutions will abandon principles of scientific enquiry and run scared before the interests of those who control funding streams?

Meanwhile the Royal society hands big funding to Stephan Lewandowsky and a prominent UK university appoints him to a professorship. This stinks. Strong proof that academia has abandoned serious scientific enquiry into the strong uncertainty surrounding the physical processes which affect the carbon cycle.

Anthony, lots of people only update their online publication list when they get to a new place and are introduced to its website, then they forget all about it. Now that search engines like google scholar are free to use they are much better.

It’s pretty well explained in the Macquarie University Profile on their website where they state:

“All our hard work is paying off: since 2007 we have consistently moved up the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Academic Rankings of World Universities. In the recent Excellence in Research for Australia exercise performed by the Australian Government, five of our research areas – Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, and Psychology and Cognitive Sciences – were noted for their “outstanding performance well above world standard”. Macquarie was also recently named as the top university in Australia for research in environmental science and ecology based on the number of citations per researcher. “

Michael Mann
“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. ”

Tom Wigley, UCAR
Mike’s idea to get editorial board members to resign will probably not work — must get rid of von Storch too, otherwise holes will eventually fill up with people like Legates, Balling, Lindzen, Michaels, Singer, etc.

This is why Calamatologists despise sceptics – sceptics are exposing their corruption of science to keep their massive funds flowing. I think I’m going to be sick.

The Australian Minister for Science and Industry, Kim Carr, has form on this. Leading up to Copenhagen Conference he caused CSIRO to force a leading academic to resign because he had written a paper which implicitly criticized the economic analyses behind the Government’s climate change policies.

A CSIRO economist whose research criticising emissions trading schemes was banned from publication said last night he had been subjected to harassment by the senior agency management.

Clive Spash also accused the agency of hindering public debate and trampling on his civil liberties by preventing the research being published in British journal New Political Economy.

Dr Spash defended the paper, The Brave New World of Carbon Trading, saying it was a dispassionate analysis of ETS policies and was not politically partisan.

He was told in February he could publish the work if it were peer reviewed. But in July, CSIRO management said it could not be published after it was cleared for publication.

This month, he was informed he could not publish it even in his private capacity, because it was “politically sensitive”. Within 24 hours, he also received a letter outlining a list of trivial instances in which he was accused of breaching CSIRO policy, for example not completing a leave form properly.

Dr Spash said he believed the letter was intended to, and did, intimidate him and denied him due process. None of the matters were raised with him prior to the letter being sent and each of the alleged misdemeanours could be explained.

“We are not members of the Defence Department, we are scientists who are supposed to be discussing research in an open forum. How do you advance knowledge if you stop people from publishing their work?

“I am totally happy to have my work criticised and debated but I’m not happy to have it suppressed.”

Dr Spash said it was impossible to publish research in his field that did not have an impact on government policy. “The idea that you cannot discuss something like ETS policy when you’re working on climate change as a political economist seems ridiculous,” he said.

The gagging of Dr Spash’s work is embarrassing for Science Minister Kim Carr, who defended academic freedoms in opposition and last year trumpeted a new CSIRO charter he said would give scientists the right to speak publicly about their findings.

Yesterday, Senator Carr told The Australian he supported the publication of peer-reviewed research, even if it had negative implications for government policy. He said he had not tried to gag the research.

Last night CSIRO chief executive Megan Clark said the organisation would work with Dr Spash on his paper.

“There is some important science in the paper and we will now work with Dr Spash to ensure the paper meets CSIRO internal review standards and the guidelines of the Public Research Agency Charter between the CSIRO and the federal government,” she said.

“I encourage CSIRO scientists to communicate the outcomes and implications of their work and one of the underlying core values of CSIRO is the integrity of our excellent science.”

A month later (just 4 days before the start of the Copenhagen Conference), the article below reports Dr. Clive Spash was forced to resign from CSIRO.

Clive Spash resigns from CSIRO after climate report ‘censorship’

SCIENTIST Clive Spash has resigned from the CSIRO and called for a Senate inquiry into the science body following the censorship of his controversial report into emissions trading.

Dr Spash has lashed out at the organisation which he said promoted self-censorship among its scientists with its unfair publication guidelines.

He said he was stunned at the treatment he received at the hands of CSIRO management, including boss Megan Clark, and believed he was not alone.

“I’ve been treated extremely poorly,” he said. “There needs to be a Senate inquiry.

“The way the publication policy and the charter are being interpreted will encourage self-censorship.

“It’s obviously happened before at the CSIRO – and there’s issues currently.”

Last month, Dr Spash accused the organisation of gagging him and his report – The Brave New World of Carbon Trading – and restricting its publication.

The report is critical of cap and trade schemes, like the one the federal government is seeking to introduce, as well as big compensation to polluters.

Dr Spash advocates a direct tax on carbon.

The CSIRO said the report was in breach of its publication guidelines, which restrict scientists from speaking out on public policy.

But it provoked accusations the CSIRO was censoring research harmful to the Government.

Under intense pressure, Dr Clark publicly released the report on November 26 but warned Dr Spash would be punished for his behaviour and his refusal to amend it.

“I believe that internationally peer-reviewed science should be published or, if Dr Clark wishes to have her own opinion, then she should publish her own opinion,” Dr Spash said, who has been on sick leave.
“I’ve been to the doctor under extreme stress.”

He had been ordered not to speak to the media while working for the CSIRO, which originally headhunted him for the job.

If I wanted to describe Australian science in 2013, I would write something like this :

“the state provided scientists with funds, resources, and great public prestige. In turn, the scientific community gives the state expertise and legitimacy in industry, agriculture, and medicine. Each develop various tactics to deal with its partner. The state establishes strict administrative control over institutional structures, scientific personnel, research directions, and scholarly communications. For their part, the scientists cultivate patrons among the highest bureaucrats and skilfully play upon their constantly changing policies and objectives”.

But wait …it’s not Australia, that’s Russia in the 1930’s and those are the words of Nikolai Krementsov (from the University of Toronto, http://individual.utoronto.ca/krementsov) describing Stalinist Science under Russian Communism.

When Oz gets rid of its execrable Fabian Left Government sometime this year some of us have been calling on the incoming government to hold an enquiry into the whole scam and the $Bns wasted.
We now have the necessary five members of the realist and unbiased Commission on the Religion of Climate Pseudo-Science:
Chairman – Professor Bob Carter
Deputy – Professor Murry Salby
Members – Clive Spash, Monckton of Brenchley & me (I have been doing this too long without getting my share!)
Terms of Reference: 1. Is there any evidence that the alarms have any substance?
2. Did anyone financially gain from promoting dud science? In doing so were they simply incompetent (and therefore unemployable in any academic institution) or did they commit a deliberate fraud for which they can be prosecuted (such as by committing ‘identity fraud’)?
3. Which less than useful grants should be cancelled immediately?

Dear Sir/Madam,
As you will no doubt be aware, claims concerning the treatment of Dr. Salby by your university are now spreading rapidly across the Internet. These claims should significantly increase the circulation of this video –

Allow me to extend my congratulations to your staff for their efforts in discrediting the post normal pseudo science of global warming.

You’re BEGINNING to think that?? How many years of Flanneryism (and in fact the creation of an entire govt department of Flanneryism, with Flannery as the Flannery-in-chief) was it going to take before you’re sure that we’re ground zero?

Australia is a mess at present …….Australian intellectual elite are so precious about what they see as their lofty standing in the community that they don’t see the derision with which they are held by many of us…..they see themselves as the determinants of “the right thing to do” i.e they are moralists but they are without a moral base to work from except the world of symbolism, seeming and self-congratulation (shadows)….meanwhile the rest of us watch as Australian society unravels into the harsh, sneering and totalitarian world that Salby and Carter etc are experiencing

I’m great fan of Dr. Salby and his work but I think we should listen to what the other side has to say, too.
In any case I hope Dr. Salby will be able to find a different place to continue his research.

Agree with the remedy of legal action. Such action should be taken under U.S. jurisdiction, where there is a better discovery process. Prof Salby was enticed from the U.S.; actions were taken within this country, by agents of Macquarie. Dr. Salby suffered subsequent financial loss and damage to his professional reputation, which the university must be forced to explain. There are ongoing damages being incurred.

As always, if financial support is required to right this wrong, I will contribute. Others here have indicated they will help, too. This is a battle worth fighting.

Flannery is a disgrace, along with the likes of Karoly, Cook et al, maybe we should pay him more than the $180k/pa (On top of his regular salary) for his 3 days per week job as Climate Commissioner? He, like Gore, warns us of catastrophic sea level rise and then buys a sea front property. Then, the icing on the cake, an old ex-Australian Naval Officer is wheeled out on national alarmist MSM newscasts and tells us we’re doomed if we don’t “do something” by 2020. Unfortunately far too many voters obtain their “science” from the ABC, SBS, the BBC, the BoM and the CSIRO.

In Australia, we used to have cattle stations/farms. Now we have carbon stations/farms. Australia passed the tipping point sometime in 2007.

We have a pro warmist watermelon leadership, this is about the usual sorry standard we now expect from our so called science leaders.
CSIRO once..was a trusted institution, however the more I learn of them past and present show our trust seriously MISplaced then and now.
I am so sorry for Prof Salby. hes not alone but that doesnt make it better.
the utter crap promulgated unhindered by ABC broadcast media is enough to make one cry, in shame and Rage!
we are teetering on the bronk of a big Fail financially right now, and yet?
our present KRuddy leader is now going to push an ETS that will place a tax on diesel fuel to finish wiping out our indusry transport and rural sectors in one hit.
fuel prices for petrol alone are tipped to hit 1.70 a litre soon. presently I am paying 1.48. and cant afford to go out to shop from my rural town, whos prices are also far above elsewhere due to freight etc.
the only “lucky” thing about Aus right now?
umm, thinking…still thinking.. nope!
until this crew is OUTED! we dont have much chance.
roll on the elections!
and I Have forwarded this page link to 4~~ politicians

It is a shame how Macquarie university did handle this case. One may have differences in opinion, as is often the case for academic topics, but the way they handled this is as unademic as possible: pure dictatorial, suppressing any disagreement with the so called “consensus”.

Not that I agree with point 7 of the long list, as the current increase is unprecedented in the past 800 kyears. Salby’s opinion on ice cores is based on a purely theoretical occurance of CO2 diffusion in ice cores which in reality doesn’t exist.

Ferdinand perhaps you should read this and other research into CO2 diffusion before you are so hasty in saying ‘it doesn’t exist’.

ABSTRACT. One common assumption in interpreting ice-core CO2 records is that diffusion in the ice does not affect the concentration profile. However, this assumption remains untested because the extremely small CO2 diffusion coefficient in ice has not been accurately determined in the laboratory. In this study we take advantage of high levels of CO2 associated with refrozen layers in an ice core from Siple Dome, Antarctica, to study CO2 diffusion rates. We use noble gases (Xe/Ar and Kr/Ar), electrical conductivity and Ca2+ ion concentrations to show that substantial CO2 diffusion may occur in ice on timescales of thousands of years. We estimate the permeation coefficient for CO2 in ice is 4 10^–21 molm^–1 s^–1 Pa^–1 at –238C in the top 287m (corresponding to 2.74 kyr). Smoothing of the CO2 record by diffusion at this depth/age is one or two orders of magnitude smaller than the smoothing in the firn. However, simulations for depths of 930–950m (60–70 kyr) indicate that smoothing of the CO2 record by diffusion in deep ice is comparable to smoothing in the firn. Other types of diffusion (e.g. via liquid in ice grain boundaries or veins) may also be important but their influence has not been quantified

Wow. What a great presentation Murry Salby gave. How can anyone argue against such logic and mathematical evidence. Well the answer seems to be “nobody” so instead they just cut him out of their world.

It is important at times like this to look on the bright side. There is evidence of progress since 1600. At least Professor Salby hasn’t been “burned at the stake, hanging upside-down, gagged, and naked” as poor Giordano Bruno was for supporting Copernicus’s model of the solar system with the sun at its center. Seriously though, one wonders how some ‘centers of conspiracy’ otherwise known as university departments manage to continue to exist, payrolled by taxpayers.

One of the two staff of Macquarie University who are members of the 6 member Australian Climate Commission is Tim Flannery. Professor Flannery holds the Panasonic Chair in Environmental Sustainability at Macquarie University. He is also the chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council.

In February 2011 he was appointed Commissioner of the Australian Climate Commission on a salary of $180,000 a year for his part time participation.

In 2005, Flannery predicted Sydney’s dams could be dry in as little as two years because global warming was drying up the rains.

Less than 2 weeks ago Warragamba Dam, Sydney’s main source of water was overflowing, closing some of the bridges across the Nepean River that connect the city from the west.

In June 2007, Flannery prophesied “Brisbane’s water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months”

And so the story continues for other predictions including that in 2008 he stated “this may be the Arctic’s first ice-free year”.

The Climate Commission’s latest featured report states that:

“Two years ago the Climate Commission warned that 2011-2020 is the ‘Critical Decade’ for tackling climate change. In particular, this is the Critical Decade for turning around rising emissions of greenhouse gases and putting us on the pathway to stabilising the climate system. One quarter of the way through the Critical Decade, many consequences of climate change are already evident”

The Australian Climate Commission according to The Australian Newspaper:“…is part of a $1.6 billion-a-year climate change behemoth in place to administer the government’s carbon tax. It also includes the Clean Energy Regulator, the Climate Change
Authority and the Office of the Renewable Energy Regulator.

The sprawling bureaucracy is centred in Canberra (see URL for picture below), with departmental staff housed in the six-star energy-rated Nishi building, which is under a 15-year lease worth $158m. Departmental figures given to the Senate last year revealed that 1094 staff members also work from offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Samoa – in a rental space located about 5km from the beach and a nearby golf course.

Questions HAVE been asked about the cost of this model of pretension and waste and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will scrap it if elected but the political climate has also changed recently here. Kevin Rudd is back on the throne and will be forever quoted as proclaiming climate change as the greatest moral challenge of our time – so I hardly imagine that he will take Tim’s away little empire away.

So what chance does Professor Salby have? But then again Michael Caine and Stanley Baker did alright against the Zulus.

(I am sure that you will all agree that any connection between the views and opinions of the Climate Commission and Macquarie University are purely co-incidental.)

UPDATE: I hear from Christopher Monckton that he has spoken to Salby and the situation is indeed outrageous. So it’s very likely the email is legit. Of course we have not heard Macquarie Uni’s point of view. But the email — if accurate — suggests appalling behaviour on their part.

Gotta be more to this story. I admit I’m committed to the notion of AGW. It means I disagree with those of you here (most?) who have a different view. Nonetheless, this is just plain wrong.

I’m compelled to point out that this is only one side to the story. In fact, the behavior of the University, as reported by the Professor, is so egregious one wonders if there aren’t some facts missing.

I look forward to a fuller explication. More:if he has the smoking gun, I’m anxious to see it.

Thomas says:
“This is one side of the story, it would be interesting to hear what Macquarie University has to say…”
Lewis P Buckingham says:
“This looks really bad but may not be. Perhaps Macquarie Uni Admin would like to comment.
An opinion from a QC and straight to equity would be a path. This would ensure the examination of all the claims in a fair and honest manner.”

If there is anything in Professor Salby’s email that is false one would expect Macquarie to sue him for defamation. He has accused Macquarie of breach of contract, obstructing research, lying, harassment and acting with malice. Since the university is a publicly funded body he has also effectively accused those responsible of malfeasance in public office.

No university with aspirations to be considered in the top 1,000 let alone the top 100 can afford to have its reputation sullied in this manner without recourse to the courts. If, as I expect, Macquarie takes no legal action against Professor Salby this will amount to an admission of guilt and whatever reputation the university previously enjoyed will be permanently damaged.

Anthony, your question as to whether downunder is ground zero for crackpottery understates the situation.

Suggest you check page 13 of my review of a report by taxpayer-funded national ‘science’ agency, CSIRO. It’ll give you a feel for the linkages of the Aussie climate ‘industry’.

Note that David Karoly is arguably the most senior UN IPCC academic pushing the unfounded and unscientific claim that HUMAN CO2 controls Earth’s global climate.

Four common characteristics among these people:
1. None have any empirical scientific evidence for their claim;
2. None have any logical scientific reasoning for their claim;
3. They all contradict empirical scientific evidence;
4. ALL are government funded.

Having totally caved into their governmental overseers’ decrees, once proud universities in Australia have become just another tier of mass education to delay young people entering an ever-shrinking labour market.

That vice chancellors have no shame in bruiting their graduates’ ‘generic attibutes’ in their absurd mission statements proves that universities have indeed passed their use-by dates because they should be ashamed they produce well-schooled clones instead of educated individuals!

I used to think that at least the hard sciences were still pure in their search for knowledge unlike the Yarts which are almost totally corrupted by the ideologies of feminism, queer studies, deep green environmentalism, Marxism, etc.

But no. Dr. Bob Carter recently got the boot from James Cook University though he is in his intellectual prime. And now we have this story about Murray Salby’s appalling treatment at Macquarie University in Sydney.

I knew Macquarie was on my radar already and I thought it was where the promoter of the Big History, Marxist Interp of World History without using the M word, had relocated. http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/6.3/christian.html shows that David Christian is there. The Big History Project globally is a big deal. Not only with Gates and MS sponsorship but also Moscow State. It is to be the new way history is to be taught all over the world. Reinterpreting the past around the perceived problems of the present. And the desire for a paradigm shift to a differently structured society in the future.

I have written this before but the perception of an AGW crisis is vital for the Metamorphosis of the State (as Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens call it) that has always been the post Berlin Wall plan for the West. US, UK, Australia. China obviously is already there. These political scientists and historians and sociologists may admit in their writings that it doesn’t matter if AGW is true or not, the political and cultural and economic changes are the real point, but it will not do for that to now become well known. Before the transformation has occurred.

The Big History Project, just like what are being called Understandings of Consequence about other complex systems that also has NSF financial backing, are designed to create what I call influential guiding beliefs. They are to impact daily behavior in the future. The fact that they are false is irrelevant to the planners and funders.

But none of these carefully laid plans over decades, that are well documented if you know where to look, can come to fruition once a large segment of the voting public knows the crisis does not factually exist.

Salby’s research, like the no warming for 17 years that is still not widely enough known, threaten the fundamental Transformation excuse. Big History is a high priority for this University now. This is an important angle to this story.

It should come as no surprise to anyone no matter how outrageous it actually is. It has already happened in thousands of individual cases which you have not heard of and dozens of cases you might have heard of.

The scientists, academics and the followers think they are acting from the moral high ground. They are more than convinced of this fact. But it is clearly against everything humanity and science and academia stands for. It is also simply irreconcilable with being a proper person.

This movement has to destroy itself eventually as the contradictions in science and fact and uncivilized behavior mount. Will they turn on each other? They have already shown a history of being vindictive people. Will it just slowly fade away? More likely.

The theoretical result of this research is an increase of the resolution from 20 to 22 years at medium depth and from 20 to 40 years for full depth (70 kyrs back in time). Not a big deal at all. That is for a relative “warm” (-23°C) coastal ice core. The migration in the much colder (-40°C) inland ice cores like Vostok and Dome C is orders of magnitude slower and unmeasurable. If there was substantial migration, then the glacial/interglacial ratio of 8 ppmv/°C would fade for each 100 kyrs step back in time.

Anthony, your computer acumen greatly exceeds mine, however, I have several clues as to how to contact people from Macabre (Not misspelled) University and the Germans. Even with my shabby ability I shall do so.

He is a lying militant internet troll only spreading smearing desinformation about sceptical individuals and smears and is funded by Green Peace and extreme militant swedish socialists groups. He has no moral compassion or honour at all. Hes gone to far and this is a picture of Mr Thomas Palm. Hes also been active trying to pressure universities not to invite sceptic scientist in Sweden. Picture:

“..Gotta be more to this story. ……[…]…In fact, the behavior of the University, as reported by the Professor, is so egregious one wonders if there aren’t some facts missing…”

The answer is probably in this reply above:
King of Cool says: July 9, 2013 at 3:51 am

“…One of the two staff of Macquarie University who are members of the 6 member Australian Climate Commission is Tim Flannery. Professor Flannery holds the Panasonic Chair in Environmental Sustainability at Macquarie University. He is also the chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council.
In February 2011 he was appointed Commissioner of the Australian Climate Commission on a salary of $180,000 a year for his part time participation. …”

and

The Australian Climate Commission according to The Australian Newspaper:
“…is part of a $1.6 billion-a-year climate change behemoth in place to administer the government’s carbon tax. It also includes the Clean Energy Regulator, the Climate Change Authority and the Office of the Renewable Energy Regulator. ..”

Where were you thinking of going? NZ? Nope! The EU? Nope! The USA? Soon to be a nope! So that leaves the BRIC countries, Brazil (Nope. Too worried about bus fares and the world cup). Russia? Maybe, if you speak, drink and drive like a Russian. That leaves India and China. Africa is not even in contention!

Professor Salby will have to take this up with MacQuarie University. There are procedures in any University for handling grievances….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Did’t you read the entire post? He has been following those “procedures” for FIVE (self-snip) YEARS and they INTENTIONALLY stranded him in the EU while the tribunal met!

After my run-ins (multiple thefts) with the US law system, I have nothing but contempt for law enforcement and the DA’s office here in the USA. The Rule of Law is a myth for the naive.

This article explains the actual system here and the USA and elsewhere. If you are not one of the favored few or a brown noser, there is no ‘justice’ for you.

…Our ruling class’s agenda is power for itself. While it stakes its claim through intellectual-moral pretense, it holds power by one of the oldest and most prosaic of means: patronage and promises thereof….By taxing and parceling out more than a third of what Americans produce, through regulations that reach deep into American life, our ruling class is making itself the arbiter of wealth and poverty.

While the economic value of anything depends on sellers and buyers agreeing on that value as civil equals in the absence of force, modern government is about nothing if not tampering with civil equality. By endowing some in society with power to force others to sell cheaper than they would, and forcing others yet to buy at higher prices — even to buy in the first place — modern government makes valuable some things that are not, and devalues others that are. Thus if you are not among the favored guests at the table where officials make detailed lists of who is to receive what at whose expense, you are on the menu. Eventually, pretending forcibly that valueless things have value dilutes the currency’s value for all.

Laws and regulations nowadays are longer than ever because length is needed to specify how people will be treated unequally.…

Nowadays, the members of our ruling class admit that they do not read the laws. They don’t have to. Because modern laws are primarily grants of discretion, all anybody has to know about them is whom they empower.

By making economic rules dependent on discretion, our bipartisan ruling class teaches that prosperity is to be bought with the coin of political support…..

In America ever more since the 1930s — elsewhere in the world this practice is ubiquitous and long-standing — government has designated certain individuals, companies, and organizations within each of society’s sectors as (junior) partners in elaborating laws and administrative rules for those sectors. The government empowers the persons it has chosen over those not chosen, deems them the sector’s true representatives, and rewards them. They become part of the ruling class….

Some people wonder what Salby was doing at Macquarie in the first place. Looking at this publications list, I find Trenberth there. Maybe he used to be one of the guys so to speak who had the time to think things over. An epiphany of sorts which brought him over to the “dark” side and he became excommunicated. Bill Maher will often ridicule people calling climate science a religion. Though I’m on the other side of the political fence, I often listen to him, his not all wrong but it is amazing now he could fail to see the log in his own eye.

I’ll reserve judgement until I see all the evidence. Hang around academia long enough and you will find as many misbehaving professors as there are misbehaving administrators. This post lists a string of offenses with little explanation of why they occurred, especially at the beginning of employment. Universities rarely if ever recruit people only to ignore them. What’s the rest of the story?

And while Australia is being distracted with various issues such as boat arrivals, the political pantomime going on in Canberra and a looming election, all eyes seem to be turned away from the ensuing situation in Egypt (Not wanting to hijack the thread). Watch what happens with Suez Australia!

Andrew says:
July 9, 2013 at 2:38 am
….. How many years of Flanneryism (and in fact the creation of an entire govt department of Flanneryism, with Flannery as the Flannery-in-chief) was it going to take before you’re sure that we’re ground zero?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I always thought it was the BP and Shell funded Climate Research Unit of East Anglia.

Big History is committed to a convergence of the natural sciences and the humanities into a single conceptual framework. Which means so is Macquarie since they have been the sponsor of this effort for many years.

There’s no room for objective science or an independent, rational human being in that framework of man the species. No wonder Salby ran into trouble.

None of the reports contains any statements whatsoever that says anything like “one in two chance that by 2100 there’ll be no human beings left on this planet”. And the reference, provided by Salby is not a reference to any original source for such a statement. It’s an article by someone who makes claims about it and who is obviously biased. It’s biased hearsay.

(i) Modern changes of atmospheric CO2 and methane are (contrary to popular belief) not unprecedented.

Contrary to whose popular belief? And how is this something new? It is well known in climate science that greenhouse gas mixing ratios are not “unprecedented”, and at times in the geological past, greenhouse gas mixing ratios were at the same levels, or even multiple times higher than today. Who is supposed to have said differently? Apparently, Salby does not present here correctly what is said in scientific studies about this topic.

Salby claims:

(ii) The same physical law that governs ancient changes of atmospheric CO2 and methane also governs modern changes.

These new findings are entirely consistent with the preliminary findings, which evaluated the increase of 20th century CO2 from changes in native emission.

These “findings” could only be valid, if basic physical principles like mass conservation did not apply to carbon dioxide. Currently, about 32 Gt carbon dioxide are emitted by human activities every year. This would cause an increase in the atmospheric mixing ratio of carbon dioxide of about 4 ppm every year, if none of this carbon dioxide was removed from the atmosphere. However, the actual increase is about 2 ppm per year, currently. Since there are no substantial anthropogenic sinks of carbon dioxide, it follows from mass conservation and basic mathematical logic that Nature can’t be a net source in the carbon dioxide cycle of the planet under the present day conditions. It must be a net sink, where the difference in the mass equivalent to an increase of the other 2 ppm per year is sequestered. (1. It’s actually about 60% of the CO2 from human activities that is being sequestered in natural sinks. 2. That the efficiency of the natural sources and sinks of the carbon dioxide cycle also varies with atmospheric conditions, e.g. with the annual cycle, and with the climate state, and that there are feedbacks possible due to this, is another matter.) Otherwise, if Nature was a net source for the carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere, where did all the human carbon dioxide go then? Does carbon dioxide mass from human activities just mysteriously vanish?

And I suspect, that the failure to even account for the basic physical principle of mass conservation is one of the reasons why we are still waiting for the long-time ago announced publication of Salby’s spectacular “findings” in one of the peer-reviewed specialist journals of the field.

As environmental disasters go, the explosion Saturday of a runaway train that destroyed much of the Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic, about 20 miles from the Maine border, will probably go down the memory hole.

Unfortunately, this article is pay-walled. However, here are a few choice quotes:

Did the [train] explosion at Lac-Mégantic not significantly exacerbate the problem of pollution, carbon or otherwise? Why do environmentalists routinely frame political choices in the language of moral absolutes—save/destroy the planet; “don’t be mean, go green,” and so on—rather than as complex questions involving trade-offs that are best dealt with pragmatically?

When it comes to the question of how best to transport oil, environmentalists tend to act like rabbis being asked for advice on how best to roast a pig: The thing should not be done in the first place. So opposition to Keystone XL becomes an assertion of virtue, indifferent to such lesser considerations as efficiency (or succulence).

mogamboguru says: @ July 9, 2013 at 4:11 am
What kept him there?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
He had a job, it is tough for an academic to just switch employers. Heck I am a lowly chemist and it has normally taken 6 months to a couple of years to switch employers and I do not have to worry as much about gossip among a very closed world wide clique.

If Salby’s research was taking him in a direction the Clique did not like, getting him out of his US job (Without a contract) may not have been innocent. I had this type of thing happen twice. The first time I took the bait and the second time I did not. It would have stranded me in Long Island after ~ 3 months despite being labeled “Permanent” employment.

The problem with legal proceedings is that they are beyond the pocket of ordinary people. This allows state, quasi state, governmental. quasi governmental departments and large companies to get away with many a practice that would be regarded as unlawful, illegitimate and/or uncontractual if properly and adequately scrutinised. Most ordinary people do not have the financial wherewithal to obtain redress. Add to that the delays which often go hand in hand with legal proceedings and it is easy to see why so many are critical of the ‘system’ and why some feel that not everyone is equal before the law.

Absolutely shocking. Whether his theory of the CO2-temperature relationship is right or wrong, Salby is clearly a profoundly original thinker and an outstanding scientist. Here is hoping that he will find a position commensurate with his level of achievement, in a partially sane environment, if these even still exist.
I like the idea of setting up a support fund for him – maybe Anthony or Joanne could do it, since they reach a large audience?

It is interesting to watch how almost all of the “skeptic” crowd here just accept all those claims by Salby he makes in this email as true at face value w/o being a bit skeptical. Why is that?
REPLY: probably because climate science has a history of intimidation like this. – Anthony

Note that the reaction of the academics who hang out here has generally been a raised eyebrow, especially at the rather excessively nasty business with the plane ticket, but no real surprise. This kind of stuff happens. We all know that it happens. We mostly hope that it doesn’t happen anywhere near us. I expect this sorry saga will now end up in court.

Academic life isn’t all peaches and cream. You survive on your reputation and live or die based on the respect of your peers. Lose that respect for whatever reason and they can give you a very brutal ride to the exit indeed. After this rather pointed reminder of the harsher realities of academic life, I think I’ll pull my horns in for a while and go back to using a pseudonym.

My newspaper headlines said this morning, and I quote, “THE KILLER HEATWAVE Boy 17 drowns and girl, 14, missing as UK swelters in 30C sunshine.” The problem is, yesterdays maximum temperature in London, the hottest part of the UK was only 27C. It was only 18.6 where I live.
We are all being brainwashed by these people and if you disagree you are shut out.

REPLY: so does Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet in Duesseldorf condone such use of their network to write such drivel, or are you “tenured” and thus above the law? – Anthony

Now, this is something I really like.

Mr. Watts ones again outs the IP network from where a commenter writes for an unliked comment. I suspect the purpose is to intimidate the commenter.

Mr. Watts also insinuates the commenter has broken the law with this comment, even though Mr. Watts doesn’t have any evidence for such an accusation against the commenter.

I don’t think any of this is very ethical.

REPLY: And I don’t think it is ethical to use taxpayer funded resources to taunt people, but it apparently doesn’t bother you in your “anything goes” world of publicly funded hate of skeptics. But see here’s the thing Mr. Perlwitz, I don’t care what you think. Read the policy page. – Anthony

Unfortunately in Australia we have a taxpayer funded, public service type university sector and you know how Eisenhower warned us about that. Back in the 1970s it was the Whitlam Labor Govt that flung open the doors of our sandstones to all and sundry and thus began the long march of leftists through our higher institutions, their job made much easier by the weak minds with which they had to work and here we all are. Our Macquaries are no different to the East Anglias in that regard, but the ordinary bloke has given up listening to their doomsday drivel which is of course driving the Flannerys, Cooks and Lewandowskys increasingly lunar in their attempts to convince said ignorant masses that they are the light and the way.

Despite what you may hear to the contrary, PM Gillard was just knifed by her own Labor Party after catastrophic poll numbers, principally stemming from her promise not to introduce a carbon tax last election and then doing a complete about face deal with Greens. She never recovered from that and when she began to go loopy like Cook, Lew, Flan to try and land a blow on the Opposition she was rolled to be replaced by the previous dweeb. Kevin Rudd is despised by his own colleagues, which is why they sacked him for Gillard but he is a media savvy empty suit in the Obama mould. Basically a clever campaigner with appeal to the Twitterverse and the attention deficit crowd but you work out fairly quickly he’s all talk and no outcomes. Like most Western countries nowadays you don’t judge a people by their covers, particularly when they’ve got recent letters after their names.

From a UK lawyer’s perspective I find that legal process is being made more complex by new systems that on the face of it were supposed to make it simpler and moreover the risk involved for all, including the lawyer, is being steadily magnified over time.

The net result is to increasingly put legal process beyond the reach of more and more of the population.

People blame lawyers as a group but those responsible are entirely in the public sector bureaucracy as it increasingly builds unsustainable empires from within our political system.

With sympathy for Salvo, this is all very good news as it exposes in true living color the scurrilous ethics and outrageous behavior of academia .
This will get much more attention, be distributed worldwide, lead to court action and mushroom into what may be a catastrophe for those involved and the AGW movement at a large.

This wildly brazen treatment of Salvo reaches a level of recklessness produced by desperation and panic.

It’s like a desperate and out of work transient who’s hit bottom, resorted to robbery to feed his drug habit and is about to be arrested and imprisoned.

Larry Huldén says:
July 9, 2013 at 1:10 am
It looks to me that the University is deliberately cutting off Salby’s publication list.

Their research online page shows 6 papers and one book, with two papers as recently as last year so apparently not. Only those last two appear to be about work at Macquarie, apparently with the russian grad student. That’s rather disastrous output for an academic if correct! I assume that he’s a US citizen so will be able to return to the US but it will be difficult to find a position. The grad student I hope will be taken care of, I recall having to deal with a similar situation many years ago where a grad student was left in the middle of her studies by her advisor, several of us were able help her find a new advisor but she was in limbo for about six months (also far from home).

Jan P Perlwitz says:July 9, 2013 at 6:37 am
“It is interesting to watch how almost all of the “skeptic” crowd here just accept all those claims by Salby he makes in this email as true at face value w/o being a bit skeptical. Why is that?”

You’re imagining things. People are responding to what is indicated while awaiting more information from inquiries being made.

The enormous difference between skeptics and the other camp is the skeptics want to get to the bottom of the issues through whatever means are necessary.

In stark contrast this Salvo incident demonstrates yet again how alarmist academia obstructs efforts to discover a better understanding.

Consistent with their dubious approach you have invented what you assert.
The “crowd’ has not “just accepted all those claims on face value”.
Concern, curiosity, suspicion, questions and inquiry abound.

Would you, Jan, prefer that everyone just shut their pie hole?
That Watts should mind his own business?

[perhaps you could expand this comment to show why research you disagree with would be considered risible. . . mod]

It’s not “research I disagree with”. It’s research that the greater atmospheric community thinks is a joke. Not a threat like most of the comments here suggest, but an utter and complete joke.

The first part of my undergrad in bio was from a university where creationism was taught in genbio. There’s a stigma attached to activities like that, and it taints the whole university and all of its science grads to potential employers. A professor that tries to deny the anthropogenic origin of the rise in CO2 is no different. It doesn’t matter what I think or what you guys think. That’s what the scientific community thinks.

[wouldn’t your keyboard time be better spent pointing out his lies rather than asking, even rhetorically, for others to prove he is telling the truth? . . . mod]

It’s not my tasks to disprove anything what Salby claims in his email without any evidence. It’s just his words. My question is why should I just believe anything what Salby claims at face value? I don’t. Obviously, unlike most of the commenters of the “skeptic” crowd here. The burden of proof is on the ones who make assertions and state accusations against others regarding the alleged misconduct, i.e., on Salby, and on everyone who claims his assertions and accusations were true. That’s how it works in my world, at least.

REPLY: I have independent confirmation now. The story checks out. You see, your AGW friends really ARE that nasty. I’ve experienced that nastiness firsthand myself on many occasions. You should be denouncing this behavior against Salby and Carter. Will you? Or is AGW too important to you that crushing people and ideas is worth “the cause”?

One of the most common themes, I hear from people these days, is how “educating” the world’s masses will save us all. This seems to be a reasonable premise until one realizes just how corrupt our education systems are and how covert agendas, bias, and political correctness, has made such fine ideas improbable. Education systems are undermined and corrupted and cannot provide the required relief. Education is just another vehicle for propaganda. It is very discouraging. How can it ever be realistically cleaned up, when funding is political? It all seems too entangled in the “condition of man” for solution. /whine off – GK

REPLY: I have independent confirmation now. The story checks out. You see, your AGW friends really ARE that nasty. I’ve experienced that nastiness firsthand myself on many occasions. You should be denouncing this behavior against Salby and Carter. Will you? Or is AGW too important to you that crushing people and ideas is worth “the cause”?

We all await your position on the matter Mr. Perlwitz – Anthony

My position is that a claim by you that you had “independent confirmation”, according to which things were true in the way as presented by Salby is also just a claim. Am I supposed to just believe you now at face value, Mr. Watts, instead of just believing Salby? For what reason should I, or anyone else, do this?
REPLY: Well that’s just the response I expect from you. Note that I mentioned Bob Carter whose story is confirmed by a news organization. You simply are unable to believe that your friends in the AGW movement are capable of being that nasty. You suffer from the same sort of confirmation bias in politics as you do in science it seems.

We’ll put you down as saying that Bob Carter’s situation is OK with you then? Shall we also put you down as Salby’s situation is OK with you since you refuse to believe it? I just need to know for the next essay.

Your people wailed over Jim Hansen’s being on a bit of a speaking leash during Bush years, but I expect nary a peep over destroying careers like this of people you disagree with. – Anthony

Richard Verney said: “The problem with legal proceedings is that they are beyond the pocket of ordinary people.”

I entirely agree – and it’s actually worse than that. This is Australia whose laws are based on those of the UK (not those of the Land of the Free, having freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment).

Particularly, Australian law follows the same principles as UK law as to litigation costs: that the losing party to litigation, as well as those knowingly providing funding which allowed the losing party to continue the (unsuccessful) litigation, are liable to repay the litigation costs of the successful party. This has an incredibly “damping” effect, especially against defendants with essentially unlimited resources, such as publicly funded bodies following the political consensus du jour.

And watch out all those advocating some legal fund for Dr Salby – do it covertly (such as by buying his book) else you might become liable for costs too …

It is interesting to watch how almost all of the “skeptic” crowd here just accept all those claims by Salby he makes in this email as true at face value w/o being a bit skeptical. Why is that?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Personal experience coupled with the Climategate e-mails and then you have THIS

It’s not every day that left-leaning academics admit that they would discriminate against a minority.

But that was what they did in a peer-reviewed study of political diversity in the field of social psychology, which will be published in the September edition of the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Psychologists Yoel Inbar and Joris Lammers, based at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, surveyed a roughly representative sample of academics and scholars in social psychology and found that “In decisions ranging from paper reviews to hiring, many social and personality psychologists admit that they would discriminate against openly conservative colleagues.”

This finding surprised the researchers. The survey questions “were so blatant that I thought we’d get a much lower rate of agreement,” Mr. Inbar said. “Usually you have to be pretty tricky to get people to say they’d discriminate against minorities.”

One question, according to the researchers, “asked whether, in choosing between two equally qualified job candidates for one job opening, they would be inclined to vote for the more liberal candidate (i.e., over the conservative).”

More than a third of the respondents said they would discriminate against the conservative candidate. One respondent wrote in that if department members “could figure out who was a conservative, they would be sure not to hire them.”…..

For professor Salby to openly make these statements sets him up for a suit by the Univ. if true. I doubt very much he would be that stupid.

It’s time to play hardball Anthony, bare knuckles and all that. How about those Climategate 3 emails? Set them free.

Oh by the way, Jan Perlwitz ( Jan P Perlwitz says: July 9, 2013 at 6:56 am) is a James Hansen clone; him being Jan’s former boss. Pay no attention to the [self-snip]. And Jan complains about ethics? LMAO. Climategate?!

Anthony, you really hit a nerve with this, drawing all the AGW nutcases out of the woodwork. What does one do with the playground bully? Someone needs to knock them on their a**. You have the tools at your disposal.

I suppose I’m not the only one who finds this way too similar to Germany in the 30’s blackballing (or worse) those scientists who believed in “Jewish Physics” who didn’t toe the Nazi party line. God help us from these fools who claim to be climate scientists. When this finally blows up and the public realizes how badly they’ve been had you might want to invest in pitchforks and torches and tar and feathers.

Taphonomic says:
July 9, 2013 at 7:58 am
Nick Stokes says:
“Murry Salby was apparently professor for five years. Does anyone know of any scientific papers that he wrote (published or not) in that time?”

Yes.

Did you try doing a Google Scholar search on Salby before you ask?

The link you gave pulls up all papers which include the word ‘salby’ anywhere in the paper, that produces a very large number of hits but doesn’t give a count of his publications. If you limit the search to Salby as an author you get a reasonable list (with some duplications) which matches the Macquarie online source.

The non academic staff in Universities in Australia can be absolutely lethal – they can’t be fired, they are all at their peak in Peter;’s Law (incompetent) and the don’t really give a (Snip) about anyone. I’ve dealt with them and can imagine all the trauma Salby has been through. Unfortunately they all know the rules backwards and all the loopholes (because they created them) and will back each other up to the hilt.

Jan P Perlwitz says:
July 9, 2013 at 7:53 am
“It’s not my tasks to disprove anything what Salby claims in his email without any evidence. It’s just his words. My question is why should I just believe anything what Salby claims at face value? I don’t.”

Perlwitz, does that mean that you don’t believe that skeptics are a well organized sinister force paid by Big Oil?
Careful, don’t let your bosses hear that.

Australia truly has become ground zero for AGW crackpottery. The proof is their carbon pricing scheme has set carbon at $23 per ton when carbon is priced around $3 in the rest of the world. With their population at only 23 million, they actually think they can save the world. What conceit.

There, the claims by Carter are presented. It is also shortly reported that the university denies that the assertions by Carter were true.

Is this supposed to be the alleged confirmation by a news organization? The fact that they are reporting about Carter’s claims? By what logic follows from this that the claims by Carter were true? Because when something is said in the news it must be true?

Your people wailed over Jim Hansen’s being on a bit of a speaking leash during Bush years, but I expect nary a peep over destroying careers like this of people you disagree with. – Anthony

“Your people”? Who is this supposed to be? Either you reference something what I said, or you don’t have anything. What you do here is applying the logical fallacy of guilt by association to make an argument against me.

So far I still have only the word by Salby about the alleged misconduct against him. Or by Carter. And your claim there was “independent confirmation”, which is also nothing more than a claim at this point.
REPLY: Of course the university is going to deny it. I’ve spent 25+ years in TV and radio news, this is just standard boilerplate response. I’ve seen the same sort of response from our own university here in similar situations that later turned out to be true. Its an institutional thing.

“your people” means your people at GISS, in the building you work at, the place you have previously refused to acknowledge you work for, even though you are listed in the GISS directory, have a GISS phone number, and have a NASA GISS email address.

I must say though that I find one part of his letter less than convincing. He stated that he needed technical support to convert computer program to run in Australia. I am familiar with Australian computer centers as I have to use them myself. Their machines are all absolutely standard, with standard hardware and standard operating systems. If his codes ran on a machine in the USA, then they would run on machines in Australia. So the resources he was expecting must have been something else, which he has not detailed.

It could be that it ran on an oddball OS, one from a mini computer company no longer in business or that never sold to Australia. Or they could have been written in an obscure computer language. or both.

It is interesting to watch how almost all of the “skeptic” crowd here just accept all those claims by Salby he makes in this email as true at face value w/o being a bit skeptical. Why is that?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Personal experience coupled with the Climategate e-mails and then you have THIS

Thank you for openly admitting your own confirmations bias, whatever rationalization for it you apply for yourself. I appreciate the honesty.
REPLY: Mr. Perlwitz himself puts his own confirmation bias and willingness to publish unsubstantiated facts on display at his own blog. he claims he is banned here. I pointed out to him that I, as the owner, and not the moderation team is the only one who issues bans for bad behavior. Obviously by his dialog here today, he isn’t. Yet he leaves in place this statement:

” Thus, the only change for me is that me being banned is official now. “

Clearly he’s OK with putting up unsubstantiated information on his own blog when he believes it, while demanding more than my own word of independent substantiation here. The confirmation bias is climate science in a nutshell. – Anthony

Though I hated to add to Jan’s traffic (which increased significantly with my visit) I noticed he only had a handfull of comments in the last 6 months. Most of his posts were nothing but complaints about Anthony’s moderation policy and claims he’s been banned here. Too funny.

We’re not far off that in Aus IMO. Given it was a Polish female Jew who proved Einstein (E=MC(squared)) correct, just before WW2.

And what is the analogy to Salby supposed to be? Is he soon going to prove that conservation of mass does not apply to carbon dioxide, refuting the “hoax” created by the AGW crowd about the carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere due to human activities?

Reply to Jan P Perlwitz:
Salby claimed: “To promote the Climate Commission’s newest report is the latest sobering claim:
“one in two chance that by 2100 there’ll be no human beings left on this planet”
After researching this, I find Salby’s claim is correct. To launch the “Climate Commission’s report, Retired admiral Chris Barrie appeared with Will Steffen to launch a new report from the Climate Commission on ABC television. Chris Barrie did in fact make the claim. The claim did in fact occur in order to help promote the Climate Commissions report. The reason for Retired admiral Chris Barrie to appear with Will Steffen was in order to help promote the Climate Commissions’s report.

Salby quote: “(i) Modern changes of atmospheric CO2 and methane are (contrary to popular belief) not unprecedented.

Jan P Perlwitz wrote:”Contrary to whose popular belief? And how is this something new?”

The statement was an opinion by Salby. It is a common claim that changes in atmospheric CO2 and methane are unprecedented as are changes in temperatures. I know from discussions with people that it is a popular belief that changes in CO2 and methane are unprecedented. Hence, I find the opinion by Salby to be reasonable and I believe correct.

Salby quote: “(ii) The same physical law that governs ancient changes of atmospheric CO2 and methane also governs modern changes.
These new findings are entirely consistent with the preliminary findings, which evaluated the increase of 20th century CO2 from changes in native emission. ”

Jan P Perlwitz wrote:”These “findings” could only be valid, if basic physical principles like mass conservation did not apply to carbon dioxide.”

When he discussed this, he was showing the correlation between changes in CO2 and temperature on the scale of changes between interglacial to glacial conditions. He discusses human emissions of CO2 and changes in CO2 in detail. In other words, you have taken his statements out of context. Buy his book and you will be able to understand what he is talking about.

Jan Perlitz used to defend James Hansen here. Interesting that he should jump to the defense of Macquerie U of Oz in their sabotage of Salby’s career there. Perlitz’s method of defending Macquerie is to insinuate that Professor Salby is dishonest and deserved what ever evil that Macquerie U could devise against him. So Nick Stokes and Perlwitz team up to heap further calumny and injury on Professor Salby, thus supplementing the efforts of Macquerie U to injure Salby. Interesting.

His WoS record shows a good rate of publication up through 2008, then a hiatus until 2012. The 3-year 2009-2012 paper drought is consistent with the related history of problems imposed by Macquarie University. Presumably, co-author Evgenia Titova is the Russian Ph. D. student of whom Salby wrote.

“It is interesting to watch how almost all of the “skeptic” crowd here just accept all those claims by Salby he makes in this email as true at face value w/o being a bit skeptical. Why is that?”
—
Being sceptical about someone’s scientific hypothesis is always fair, regardless of whoever turns out to be right in the end. It is a central part of scientific ethos. On the other hand, being “sceptical” about another man’s assertion of simple fact means to assume that he is a liar. This is usually done based only on prior evidence of untruthfulness. Do you have such evidence? Put up or shut up.

Pat Frank says:
“His WoS record shows a good rate of publication up through 2008, then a hiatus until 2012. ”
—
He wrote a textbook, for crying out loud. Did you ever try that? I did. It too me about five times longer than I had planned, and it very significantly impacted my rate of paper output, too.

I am sorry to see the empty face of academia exposed again, Pointmans quip, of how amazing, that such tiny brains can produce such planetary size egos, is right on the money.
This rot of ethics free groupthink is rampant in our bureaucracies, universities are just the easiest window into the mindset of our “intellectual superiors.”

Govt worldwide is in breach of contract, long promised services are denied, but the money has already been forcibly extracted from the taxpayer.
Promise made, money taken, promise not kept. Yet our bureaucracy insist we must provide the extravagant rewards and pensions they promised themselves.
This treatment of Murry Salby is business as usual for modern bureaucrats, ethics and laws are only for the “little people”.
As usual it escapes the attention of these parasites, that society as a whole may be better off without their “help”.

That Australian experience is going about as well as human rights forced-abortion opponent Chen Guangcheng at NYU. The blind guy with the trademark glasses, whose plight eventually had to be acknowledged by Sec of State Clinton.

I don’t know what motivated NYU to accept Chen in the first place; We NYU-educated elistist totalitarians are totally jealous of the way China controls fertility, and we will be doing the same as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

Being sceptical about someone’s scientific hypothesis is always fair, regardless of whoever turns out to be right in the end. It is a central part of scientific ethos. On the other hand, being “sceptical” about another man’s assertion of simple fact means to assume that he is a liar. This is usually done based only on prior evidence of untruthfulness. Do you have such evidence? Put up or shut up.

Following this logic, if someone accused someone else of a crime, and I didn’t have any knowledge about prior untruthfulness of the accuser, I should believe the accusations to be true at face value, and I would be the one at fault, if I said the burden of proof for the accusations was on the accuser, and I didn’t believe anything before the accusations to be proven true.

Computer code conversion – I presume that Dr Salby is talking about HPC code (High Performance Computing) in which case there would very likely be major conversion issues that require trained resources to undertake, and these are a different skill set than the researcher’s in most cases, so yes, he may well have needed considerable help.

Fact checking – yes we haven’t heard the other side of the story yet, but if they are guilty as charged we never will. The plane ticket is the smoking gun. It should be possible to independently verify that the claims is true, that they cancelled a non-refundable return ticket. If so, that’s a remarkable level of spite and lends credence to the balance of Salby’s story.

Jan P – Having debated him on other issues before, his rushing to the defense of Macquarie makes me all that much more sympathetic to Salby. Jan P has a history on this site that in my experience suggests a smokescreen to hide the fire.

Michael Palmer says:
July 9, 2013 at 10:01 am
On the other hand, being “sceptical” about another man’s assertion of simple fact means to assume that he is a liar.
__________________________________________

That’s not true. I have no reasons to doubt that what Dr. Salby wrote is truth, but I have many reasons to believe that it’s not the whole truth. That’s why I believe we should wait for reaction from Macquarie and compare the two versions before we start judging anyone.
Not only almost everyone here accepts provided information with no doubts but many people are midlessly jumping on a conspiracy bandwagon. Dr. Lewandowsky would sure be pleased.
If we want to call ourselves skeptics we should be first of all skeptical to our own conclusions based on insufficient and incomplete evidence.

This is the shameful extent to which the ‘establishment’ will go to thwart any questioning
of the global-warming/climate-change orthodoxy. Dr. Salby’s findings threaten to under-
mine the claims of ‘consensus science.’

I thought I had read the most outrageous, possible, scaremongering promulgated by the
increasingly desperate warmists; but, even the most fanciful, anti-scientific, claims are
exceeded by that of Item 13. It takes my breath away.

“one in two chance that by 2100 there’ll be no human beings left on this planet”

Surely, even warmists must henceforth question their association with institutions willing
to use such an unabashed application of naked power to frustrate the evolution and present-
ation of new scientific research. This action, at last, exposes..for all to see…the fraudulence
of the claims to science made by the ‘consensus scientists.’

Jimmy Haigh says:”Maybe there are some computing gurus here who could help Prof. Salby with his code?”

Well, the email indicated there were “several hundred thousand lines of code” to convert.

To me, this implies that the code base is a monster that was not written over time to work on hardware/software operating systems that are no longer common at every University. It probably goes along with an older unique or non-commercial database instead of using for example an Oracle database. That would have been typical years ago.

Therefore, I would speculate he needed help getting his models to work properly on PC based server platforms or Linux based platforms instead of whatever older hardware it was working on previously (probably Unix boxes of some kind). Such a task would require a bit of research to determine if there are any relatively efficient ways of doing it. If there isn’t, then it would possibly require quite a bit of work. But it should be work that they could hire for example computer science students at the University to work on.

“Since there are no substantial anthropogenic sinks of carbon dioxide, it follows from mass conservation and basic mathematical logic that Nature can’t be a net source in the carbon dioxide cycle of the planet under the present day conditions.”

It is interesting to watch how almost all of the “skeptic” crowd here just accept all those claims by Salby he makes in this email as true at face value w/o being a bit skeptical. Why is that?

This is my first comment on this article. When I read it this morning, I checked out Joanne Nova’s article, the Bishop Hill’s. The latter gave me confidence the Email was authentic. I do have some troubles with Salby’s claims in his CO2 views, but they’re minor enough to ignore until I have time to look at things in detail. (Suffice it to say that the IPCC projections vs. observations and also the decade + of warming followed by a decade + of plateau is enough to raise significant questions.)

I did wish I had the University’s view on the events and especially their rationale for cancelling a non-refundable ticket. That seems to be either utter incompetence, utter vindictiveness, or perhaps the Univ can suggest something a bit milder.

Then you came along and reminded me of the sort of people I’d hate to have to rely upon. Anthony, please keep Dr Perlwitz around, we need to be reminded of the personality of some people in the climate change community. Until we hear more from the University, Dr Perlwitz makes a good stand-in.

Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
This terrible. I’ve read Carter’s book, “Climate, the Counter-Consensus,” and it’s a masterpiece of intelligent skepticism, just what good science should be. And now another academic is being ostracized for not going along with the dominant dogma? What the Hell is going on Down Under?

Michael Palmer says:
July 9, 2013 at 10:01 am
On the other hand, being “sceptical” about another man’s assertion of simple fact means to assume that he is a liar.
____________________________________________

We should be first of all skeptical about our own conclusions, especially if they are based on incomplete evidence. I have no doubts that what Dr. Salby wrote is true, but I have serious doubts it is the whole truth.
Based on this mail, we are fully entitled to pity Dr. Salby and organize help for him.
But we are in no position to judge Macquarie or accuse them of wrongdoing without even hearing their side of the truth. That’s just plain wrong.

Clearly academic freedom is under attack at Macquerie university by the high priests and political masters of AGW.
This is a very worrying situation which has disturbing parallels with Lysenkoism which flourished under the state patronage of Stalin.

This news comes as no surprise. Here in our own country physics professor Eric Hedin at Ball State University is under attack by University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne for teaching a honors course on the “Boundaries of Science,” In the approved class, Dr. Hedin suggested texts favorable to and critical of intelligent design. For this heresy, his career at Ball State might be over.

Also under attack is astrophysicist Guillermo Gonzalez, who was recently hired at Ball State University. Guillermo’s specialty is finding and writing about exoplanets. But because of his view that the design of the universe is not an accident triggered attacks once again by Jerry Coyne. Dr. Gonzalez has never taught ID in class, but by merely holding that view is enough to put your job in jeopardy.

Expect to see more stories like Professor Murry Salby’s here in America as the NCSE exerts more pressure on Universities teaching climate change “science”. This is about academic freedom and people should stand up for what is right!

Macquarie’s failure to register the contract may not have been an accident- it may have been deliberate. If there was a deliberate attempt to defraud and injure Salby, then this could be criminal, as Moncton pointed out. There will be a new government in Oz in a short while. This could be another Climategate, or bigger, if it all spins out. Someone should see that it does spin out.

What’s your interest in the matter? Is it just that you have a hard on to try to catch somebody in a logical fallacy, are you looking for more ‘what got me snipped’ material for your ridiculous blog, or are you going someplace with this?
BTW, thanks for providing an amazing ironic spectacle by actually having the cajones to come here and imply Dr. Salby is lying and then accuse people of confirmation bias. I don’t get to see people mock themselves to that degree often.

Numerous people are commenting on the rot in the ed system. It is global with the dominant drivers being the UN, the OECD, and, believe it or not, the accreditation agencies. What Salby is running into, what I have tracked back to the Soviet Union and forward to 2013, and what made me think of David Christian and the Big History Project that has been troubling for a while, ALL have one thing in common.

A coordinated effort to create a common belief system that unifies like a cosmology and is believed like dogma and that reality does not shake. It was developed as a philosophy around 1960 in a nerdy expression Ascending from the Abstract to the Concrete. But the officially supplied beliefs–the Generative Metaphors or Filtering Lenses to use two common expressions act as the guide for how the world is perceived. The purpose is to push Statism and prevent unauthorized technological innovation and basically get most of us behaving like serfs without really seeing it that way.

Think of all the stories as attempts to prevent Unapproved Personal Knowledge. It’s also the reason no one teaches reading properly anymore.

One more point, research universities did not independently all start pushing these Bad Ideas. Apart from accreditation, higher ed administrative conferences now push the idea that governments run the economy and work together with Big Business and the research universities. We are all just the passengers that exist for he sake of the ship.

I have seen the docs from decades ago laying out this as a global political strategy and I have listed to Presidents of major universities make it clear they know this strategy well. “And Governments Must Facilitate Everything” was a direct quote.

Perlwitz claims the mass balance argument proves Salby is wrong about the source of CO2

If Perlwitz watched Salby’s lecture, he would understand why the mass balance argument in fact proves nothing, as it involves a single equation with two unknowns, insufficient to determine a unique solution.

Michael, under typical academic conditions, professors who write textbooks have graduate students and post docs doing the research and writing the first drafts. The rate of paper production doesn’t fall.

The fact that Salby’s publication rate fell indicates that he wasn’t getting the grad students and post docs. He seems a good guy who would attract students. His publication hiatus began after 2008, the same year he went to Macquarie. This hiatus is then consistent with the story of getting trouble from Macquarie, rather than support.

A key one is the failure to register his contract. This has been stated to be a fact and evidence provided to back it up.

Now this has deprived Salby of certain employment rights under Australian law, that the University assured him he had when negotiating with him.

He needs to follow this up to see if this was just pure oversight or a deliberate action. If deliberate and more than one person was involved in the decision, then that is Conspiracy to deny someones lawful rights and that is an illegal act.

Should be a starter for ten in this case. He needs to put the allegation to them and if he does not get a satisfactory response a complaint to the Police should follow.

Nope. That’s UEA in Norfolk, England. This just shows that cultural links are geographically more important than physical miles in the modern world. Interesting.

Also, Ferdinand Engelbeen … I disagree with your assumptions about constancy of CO2 reservoirs but I may be wrong (this isn’t the post for that).
However to everyone else, I want to emphasise that Ferdinand Engelbeen, throughout this thread has shown how a real scientist disagrees with another.
He may be right or he may be wrong but this is how to challenge another’s ideas without silencing another’s ideas.

“Macquarie’s failure to register the contract may not have been an accident- it may have been deliberate.”

I love a good conspiracy theory. I’ll take it a step further and propose that Macquarie may have lured Salby to Australia for the express purpose of isolating him, and silencing him if he went off the farm. Let us not forget the Team and the lengths they can go to to protect their ideology.

Can’t really blame them. Who wants to be recorded in history as the University where research attempting to show the source of CO2 rise was natural? It would make them a joke.

Actually it would advance the debate.
The Medieval Warm Period is just about 800 years ago. CO2 ice-cores from Antarctica show that CO2 follows temperature by about 800 years. I have argued for years that that is a confounding factor for the theory of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.

The only counterpunches have been that:
A) The MWP didn’t exist (ha ha, even Michael Mann is embarrassed by that blunder)
or
B) No-one has published that research and it would change the whole paradigm if they did – which everyone would love (Nobel prizes, glory and pretty girls/boys etc.)

Yet now we see that option B is not true. Self-interest expressed through institutional politics trumps science.

Perlwitz claims the mass balance argument proves Salby is wrong about the source of CO2
If Perlwitz watched Salby’s lecture, he would understand why the mass balance argument in fact proves nothing, as it involves a single equation with two unknowns, insufficient to determine a unique solution.

If the natural circulation was the main source of the increase in the atmosphere, as Salby – and Bart – claim, then there would be an upspeed in ratio with the CO2 emissions by humans, which more than doubled over the past 50 years. That would more than halve the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere, but we see the opposite: the residence time increases in more recent estimates, which points to rather stable circulation in a growing reservoir.
Moreover if the oceans were the source, that would give an imprint on the 13C/12C ratio’s in the atmosphere which is not oberved:

But that is a reason for discussing things out, not a reason to behave like the university did.

In his numerous, ongoing posts written during his taxpayer-paid work day, Perlwitz asks:

“It is interesting to watch how almost all of the ‘skeptic’ crowd here just accept all those claims by Salby he makes in this email as true at face value w/o being a bit skeptical. Why is that?”

Apparently Perlwitz has never heard of the principle: “Silence is concurrence”. Macquarie U. has not responded — not even with a general, boilerplate comment that Dr. Salby is wrong in his facts.

Scientific skeptics have been all over Perlwitz’ runaway global warming beliefs from the get-go; they have answered with alacrity and facts — verifiable facts that easily deconstruct Perlwitz’ climate alarmism. But by contrast, Macquarie has posted no rebuttal of any kind to Dr. Salby’s very serious accusations of wrongdoing.

This is a very sad and disturbing story.
And as we have seen it fits the pattern of Climategate emails, of warmista behaviour throughout the whole CAGW story. It reminds me of the case of prof. Jaworowsky and many other. Will be interesting to learn how this particular case will evolve in the future.

Obviously the universities in Australia have enough money to throw on Gergis studies or for Lew papers, however behave so badly with skeptics scientists.

The problem resides maybe ironically with too much money available for universities from public teats which this way fed an unproductive, useless university bureaucracy very much dependent on government money.
So what do they do? They please the masters, there is no competition for science.
Maybe a significant reduction in money spend on various “research” might improve the quality.

“If it disagrees with observations its wrong” – so very clearly stated. Of course such call to reality and science could not be tolerated by the climate church.

janama says:
July 9, 2013 at 8:53 am
Thank you for posting the 2 videos. Very instructive.

If the natural circulation was the main source of the increase in the atmosphere, as Salby – and Bart – claim, then there would be an upspeed in ratio with the CO2 emissions by humans, which more than doubled over the past 50 years. That would more than halve the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere, but we see the opposite: the residence time increases in more recent estimates, which points to rather stable circulation in a growing reservoir.

Sounds reasonable (no reference but I have seen your record and you wouldn’t make the statement without being able to back it up). I’ll accept that.

Moreover if the oceans were the source, that would give an imprint on the 13C/12C ratio’s in the atmosphere which is not observed:

Ok the imprint is not observed but should it be? Really?

You know the source of Oceanic CO2? How much is from undersea volcanoes or evolutionary changes in the lifespan of biota? And what is the C12:C13 ratio in the deep underground or photosynthesising microorganisms?

Also, (very speculative this) if the reservoirs change then do the periods of inflow and outflow change?

But actually, this is not the post to discuss this.
This post is about academic policy and the search for knowledge. If you don’t feel it right to reply let no-one think you in anyway the lesser. Quite the reverse, perhaps.

No, the human inputs are simply negligible with respect to the natural flows, and the evolution is essentially what it would have been regardless of the human inputs. This is obvious in the data.

Not the right place to discuss these thing out – again – but if the residuals in the atmosphere doubled over time (in ratio with human inputs) and natural inputs are to blame, the whole circulation must double in speed…

Salby’s lecture shows natural sources of 13C such as vegetation and plankton in the oceans [leaner in c13 vs. c12 just like fossil fuels] vary due to temperature changes. Observations show atmospheric 13C varies according to temperature, not man-made emissions. Thus, 13C/12C is also a false argument in support of the assumption that man-made CO2 controls atmospheric CO2.

Perlwitz claims the mass balance argument proves Salby is wrong about the source of CO2

If Perlwitz watched Salby’s lecture, he would understand why the mass balance argument in fact proves nothing, as it involves a single equation with two unknowns, insufficient to determine a unique solution.

The claim that there were two unknown variables in the mass balance equation is false.

One can write the differential balance equation of the total carbon dioxide mass C in the atmosphere in a simple form,

dC(t)/dt = Fn(t) + Fa(t),

where Fn is the total of the fluxes between natural sources/sinks and the atmosphere, and Fa is the flux from anthropogenic sources (anthropogenic sinks are negligible), and t is time. This balance equation must always be fulfilled, at any point in time. The mass must always be balanced. It’s a first principle in physics. In this equation, Fa(t) averaged over time is sufficiently known, and dC(t)/dt averaged over time is sufficiently known. There is only one unknown term in this equation, the total of the fluxes between the atmosphere and natural sources/sinks Fn(t) averaged over time. Since Fa(t) has been greater Zero on average since pre-industrial times, and dC(t)/dt has been greater Zero on average since pre-industrial times, but dC(t)/dt has been smaller than Fa(t) on average since pre-industrial times, Fn(t) must have been smaller than Zero on average since pre-industrial times. It can’t be differently without violation of the mass balance equation. When 32 Gt carbon dioxide is emitted in a year due to human activities, with some variability around this value, equivalent to a yearly increase of the carbon dioxide mixing ratio in the atmosphere of about 4 ppm a year, and the atmospheric mixing ratio of carbon dioxide increases only by about 2 ppm on average every year, currently, there is a difference in the mass balance of about 2 ppm a year of carbon dioxide that comes from human activities, which must go somewhere. Mainstream climate science’s answer is it goes into the natural sinks, which take in more carbon dioxide than it is emitted from natural sources. Salby doesn’t have any answer where the carbon dioxide mass from human emissions goes. He basically claims something like 4+2=2.

One could split the natural sources/sinks into two terms, or in even more terms for different sources and sinks. And one can study how those sources and sinks respond to short-term changes in various meteorological variables, or also to longer-term changes of climate. Then one would formally have more than one unknown term in the equation. But this doesn’t change anything about the sum of all natural flux terms. The sum must be smaller than Zero on average to fully account for the total of the carbon dioxide mass change in the atmosphere and the fluxes, under the condition of the presence of the perturbation in the carbon dioxide flux that comes from human activities.

And I don’t care about video clips on “skeptic” opinion website. Those are not scientific references. I care about what published science says, because this is the place where scientists present their evidence and open their hypotheses and theories to the scrutiny of other scientists. There is a reason why Salby’s claims about the cause of the present day carbon dioxide increase since pre-industrials times are not published in the specialist journals of the field. And with all the journals that exist today, and with the open-access journals that compete with each other, it is just not believable it was because of the acting of sinister forces that suppressed the publication of his “findings”. Instead, he travels around and gives speeches to willing audiences where he spreads his claims.

My sentiments exactly, well said by all. What a gross miscarriage of justice, and a prostitution of “science.” Unfortunately, I think Dr. Salby will have an uphill battle in either civil or criminal action, as the courts are surely packed with the satraps of climatism. Here in the US, even our supposedly “conservative” Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, saw no problem with ignoring the 4th and 5th Amendments and allowing that hate group known as the EPA to declare CO2 a pollutant. I would not think Australian courts would be any different in this.

What a tragedy this is for Australia, which used to be that other beacon of liberty shining upon the world, America’s Down Under counterpart. Hopefully the September elections there will start the process of unraveling the tyrannical kleptocracy that now rules the country and its educational system.

@Rhys Fair –

Maybe, if Australia reverted to its ancient, real anthem, “Waltzing Mathilda,” spirits might be revived somewhat. I have never quite understood why WM wasn’t chosen, if “God Save the King/Queen” had to be abandoned (“O Canada” certainly isn’t any better either). How sad, that nations abandon their heritage. I’m waiting for “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “America the Beautiful,” “Hail Columbia,” “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,” “America (to the tune of ‘God Save the King’)” (in that regard, have any British Commonwealth people ever heard Charles Ives’s superfragilisticexpialidocious “Variations on ‘America'” for organ? It rocks!!), “Stars and Stripes Forever,” “God Bless America” and such to be banned from the schools, universities and other public fora of all kinds.

As for Jan P Perlwitz – to respond properly to this gastropod’s idiocy, I would need to use language too strong even for this relatively tolerant and indulgent website. In fact, I don’t think there is any word in the English language that is filthy and obscene enough to describe people like him, or what they purvey in the name of “science.”.

This isn’t about whether Salby is “right” or not. It’s about independent research and academic freedom, as opposed to Lysenkoism and the global warming thought police.

If one adds two and two, the obvious interpretation is that the University is trying to prevent Salby publish his findings in the scientific literature. (They probably have a whole bunch of lews and cooks sitting on them, too.)

Jan P said: “Michael Palmer wrote “… On the other hand, being “sceptical” about another man’s assertion of simple fact means to assume that he is a liar. This is usually done based only on prior evidence of untruthfulness.” Following this logic, if someone accused someone else of a crime, and I didn’t have any knowledge about prior untruthfulness of the accuser, I should believe the accusations to be true at face value.”

An accusation of crime is not an “assertion of simple fact”, to which Michael Palmer referred. A crime necessarily has two components: (a) the “actus reus” (the physical act, perhaps taking away another person’s property) and (b) the “mens rea” (dishonest intent, such as permanently to deprive the rightful owner of the property).

So if I were say “that man has taken my coat” I would indeed expect you to accept what I say (unless/until you have reasonable grounds for disbelief); if I were to say “that man has stolen my coat” I would again expect you to believe that he has taken my coat but you could properly point out that his reason for his taking it (whether it was just accidental, or actually dishonest) must be considered before he can be taken to have committed the crime of stealing it.

Your (attempted) rebuttal conflates two different concepts, and is inapt.

Why not crowd-fund Salby and his Russian student/assistant? And double their salaries, in the process. This may not work for his Russian assistant, as she was seeking a degree from an accredited university, but funding a credible offer for her, as well, would still be an impressive response to Macquarie’s insults.

If the residence time was increasing, the CO2 airborne fraction would not be decreasing
I was talking about the period 1960-current when everything doubled: emissions, increase/year in the atmosphere…

Observations show atmospheric 13C varies according to temperature, not man-made emissions.
On very short term (seasons), yes. Not on longer term, as the whole biosphere (land and seaplants, microbes, insects, animals) is a net producer of oxygen, thus a net absorber of CO2 and preferentially 12CO2, leaving relative more 13CO2 in the atmosphere. But we see a steady decline of the 13C/12C ratio in the atmosphere and ocean surface… See:http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
Thus Salby is wrong on this point.

But let’s leave this discussion for a another time. Now it is about Salby and the university…

Universities ought to be a broad church of differing opinion and discourse, otherwise they become stagnant pools of political correctness that no longer serve to expand human development and push back the boundaries of science and knowledge.

One thing is certain, weather and climate both go up and down. All the signs are there that cooling to at least 2020 and more likely 2030 are highly possible. Lacky University (it’s easier to spell), may have made a mistake of momentous proportions. They have traded long term respect for short term financial gain.

If, and more likely when, the climate moves into a colder spell, if they had Kept Salby they would have been in a stronger position, able to demonstrate that they held the high ground by encourage innovative thinkers to their University and that they were actively researching all aspects of climate, both the conventional wisdom of co2 and other viewpoints.

They have gambled by putting all their eggs into one basket, the belief that rising co2 means rising temperatures to dangerous levels. A risky strategy if temperatures fall as widely predicted and for which there are an increasing number of indications.

An accusation of crime is not an “assertion of simple fact”, to which Michael Palmer referred. A crime necessarily has two components: (a) the “actus reus” (the physical act, perhaps taking away another person’s property) and (b) the “mens rea” (dishonest intent, such as permanently to deprive the rightful owner of the property).

The claim is that Salby had been deliberately wronged by the university, because of his “skeptic” views. Is it not?

So if I were say “that man has taken my coat” I would indeed expect you to accept what I say (unless/until you have reasonable grounds for disbelief);

Well, too bad for you in this case. Whatever you expect from me, I nevertheless wouldn’t just accept your claim to be true at face value. Why would I? Just because you make such a claim? I don’t know you and I don’t know anything about you.

REPLY: Of course the university is going to deny it. I’ve spent 25+ years in TV and radio news, this is just standard boilerplate response. I’ve seen the same sort of response from our own university here in similar situations that later turned out to be true. Its an institutional thing.

If this is supposed to support your assertion that Carter and Salby had presented the matter correctly, then this is logically a non-sequitur.

If Carter and/or Salby have been administratively wronged by their universities they can go to court. If they are successful with that I will accept that. But I am not going to take their word at face value, when claim stands against claim.

“your people” means your people at GISS, in the building you work at, the place you have previously refused to acknowledge you work for, even though you are listed in the GISS directory, have a GISS phone number, and have a NASA GISS email address.

I don’t know whether Salby is lying about his matters with the university. But I know that it is not true what you claim here and now, Mr. Watts. I have never said that I didn’t work at the GISS institute. Instead, what I said is that I am not employed by NASA, contradicting your repeated assertions about this matter. And I said that I work at GISS as a Columbia scientist based on a collaboration between NASA and Columbia. Everyone who can read should be able to see under the link you have posted here with what institution I am affiliated. Nothing has changed regarding this. My statements about this are still the same as back then.

REPLY:The Unversity is doing wagon circling, we’ve seen it all before. You’ve said in the past, that you don’t work for NASA GISS in NYC, with excuses that you aren’t a federal employee, but some sort of special circumstance employee in some specially funded relationship between Columbia and NASA, that has blurred lines to the outsider looking in.

To solve the issue, simply say “I am a Columbia employee working at NASA GISS in NYC” and the matter is settled. Anything else is just more pointless obfuscation.

Does the money Columbia pay you come from federal funding or state funding, or something else, and is it 100% Columbia or some mixture? Or, is it some NGO like Greenpeace that is funding you? Since so many AGW activists (like your former boss Hansen) claim that skeptics are in the pay of big oil, big coal etc, I think it is a germane question. – Anthony

This Salby incident seems to be the opposite of the old academic joke, “The reason academic arguments are so nasty is because the stakes are so low.” The stakes could hardly be higher if AGW is proven to all that it is totally false. Lots of heads should roll. I retired from academe in 2001 after 37 wonderfully enjoyable years of teaching geology. The politically correct BS just got so intolerable and so unscientific that I was lucky that my retirement could happen just as the crap got too deep.

Jan P
I care about what published science says, because this is the place where scientists present their evidence and open their hypotheses and theories to the scrutiny of other scientists.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

So it must upset you greatly then that Phil Jones talked about working to get properly peer reviewed papers excluded, even if it meant changing the definition of peer review? It must bother you greatly then when the editor of Remote Sensing is forced to resign because he allowed a paper to be published despite it passing peer review and by his own assertion not having any problems with it? So you must be upset then about professors being denied promised resources and even their jobs to prevent their work from becoming part of the body of peer reviewed work?

Or are you only a supporter of peer review when it contains peer reviewed papers that agree with you?

For about the ninth time btw, you never answered my question from many threads ago as to what in Briffa’s paper could not be understood by someone with good math skills and entry level stats? Remember you refused to answer my question until I answered yours? Then when I answered yours you refused to answer mine?

You also never answered other tough questions I asked you. When asked the tough questions you either run away and hide, or whine about what is and isn’t in the peer reviewed literature. The fact is that you cannot or will not deal with the facts, and you are just fine with suppressing papers that disagree with your position from being published.

Ferdinand Englebeen set an excellent example in this thread, disputing the facts of Salby’s position without trying to silence it. If you actually believed what I quoted from you above, you would be doing the same.

“The CSIRO said the report was in breach of its publication guidelines, which restrict scientists from speaking out on public policy.”
Yet 10 days later I saw on TV half a dozen CSIRO suits entering parliament to brief MPs.

I bet all you blokes down under are regretting letting go of your guns, when was it, 1999? Wonder when things started to go down hill down under. Bet you’ll wouldn’t let that happen again if you could do it over.

There is your error. And, it is such a simple, stupid one. Natural sinks are not wholly natural. They increase in size due to increased forcing, whether that forcing is natural or anthropogenic. As a result, there is a portion of natural sink capacity which is maintained by anthropogenic inputs.

You cannot put these portions of the natural sinks into the “natural” column of the ledger, because they would go away if anthropogenic forcing were to cease. They are effectively artificial sinks.

If you do not understand this, you should not be engaged in the debate, because it means you are not able to understand complex systems.

Perlwitz says “Salby doesn’t have any answer where the carbon dioxide mass from human emissions goes. He basically claims something like 4+2=2.”

That is an absurd characterization of Salby’s lecture, which you obviously haven’t even watched. The tiny 4% contribution of man-made CO2 to total CO2 emissions is negligible with respect to the huge, dynamic natural sources and sinks. Also, as Bart pointed out above, your claim above that there are no significant anthropogenic CO2 sinks is a non sequitur.

Perlwitz says “One could split the natural sources/sinks into two terms, or in even more terms for different sources and sinks. And one can study how those sources and sinks respond to short-term changes in various meteorological variables, or also to longer-term changes of climate. Then one would formally have more than one unknown term in the equation.”

Of course one has to split the sources and sinks into [at least] two terms. Anthropogenic sinks are a third unknown in the single equation. It is a dynamic system, not static. Human sources are insignificant in comparison to the natural flows. The uncertainties on both natural sources and sinks greatly exceed the tiny human contribution.

“And one can study how those sources and sinks respond to short-term changes in various meteorological variables”

Salby has clearly shown that the huge natural sources AND sinks respond to short-term changes in temperature, not man made emissions.

So it must upset you greatly then that Phil Jones talked about working to get properly peer reviewed papers excluded, even if it meant changing the definition of peer review? It must bother you greatly then when the editor of Remote Sensing is forced to resign because he allowed a paper to be published despite it passing peer review and by his own assertion not having any problems with it? So you must be upset then about professors being denied promised resources and even their jobs to prevent their work from becoming part of the body of peer reviewed work?

These are all rhetorical question that presume and contain assertions without evidence or proof of source.

For about the ninth time btw, you never answered my question from many threads ago as to what in Briffa’s paper could not be understood by someone with good math skills and entry level stats? Remember you refused to answer my question until I answered yours? Then when I answered yours you refused to answer mine?

No, I don’t remember that this was the case how you present it here. Please back up your claims with according links and proof of source.

Why should I have the burden to answer your question “what in Briffa’s paper could not be understood by someone with good math skills and entry level stats?” I do not recall to have claimed that this was the case. Without me having claimed such a thing your question presumes an assertion about me, which is a falsehood. It’s called a loaded question. I do not see any reason why I should have to answer your loaded question.

You also never answered other tough questions I asked you. When asked the tough questions you either run away and hide, or whine about what is and isn’t in the peer reviewed literature. The fact is that you cannot or will not deal with the facts, and you are just fine with suppressing papers that disagree with your position from being published.

Since you do not back up your claims about me with anything, and the claims are unspecific, they are objectively not refutable by me. It’s a rhetoric trick by you.

Ferdinand Englebeen set an excellent example in this thread, disputing the facts of Salby’s position without trying to silence it. If you actually believed what I quoted from you above, you would be doing the same.

So what? I am not Ferdinand Englebeen. He apparently has chosen to believe the claims by Salby about the university matter at face value, without knowing all the facts, or at least heard all sides in this case. This is his choice. I have made a different one. I do not believe anything that comes without the evidence that the assertions were true. And this is not in contradiction at all to what you quoted from me. It is exactly the same approach I take toward scientific questions. Nothing should be accepted to be true without evidence.

In line with comments by some others, and in view of the shellacking being dished out here to MacQuarie University, I suggest that Anthony should formally contact MU and invite them to defend themselves here. And that really is a serious suggestion, not a sarc.

“Following this logic, if someone accused someone else of a crime, and I didn’t have any knowledge about prior untruthfulness of the accuser, I should believe the accusations to be true at face value, and I would be the one at fault, if I said the burden of proof for the accusations was on the accuser, and I didn’t believe anything before the accusations to be proven true.”

And yet you want to blindly follow computer models in the face of empirical data to the contrary? Hypocrisy much?

When criticising Salby’s statements about CO2 Jan P Perlwitz (July 9, 2013 at 6:02 am) accuses Salby of ignoring the consequences of the mass-conservation law of basic physics. He writes:

These “findings” could only be valid, if basic physical principles like mass conservation did not apply to carbon dioxide. Currently, about 32 Gt carbon dioxide are emitted by human activities every year. This would cause an increase in the atmospheric mixing ratio of carbon dioxide of about 4 ppm every year, if none of this carbon dioxide was removed from the atmosphere. However, the actual increase is about 2 ppm per year, currently. Since there are no substantial anthropogenic sinks of carbon dioxide, it follows from mass conservation and basic mathematical logic that Nature can’t be a net source in the carbon dioxide cycle of the planet under the present day conditions.

and he concludes with the questions:

Otherwise, if Nature was a net source for the carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere, where did all the human carbon dioxide go then? Does carbon dioxide mass from human activities just mysteriously vanish?

No, Mr Perlwitz, it is not Murry Salby who is ignoring the mass-conservation law; it is you (and the multitude of your fellow warmists) who are ignoring Henry’s law that governs the dissolution of gases in liquids. This well-established law of physical chemistry determines a fixed partitioning ratio between the amount of CO2 gas that the earth’s oceans will absorb and the amount that will remain behind in the atmosphere at equilibrium.

The value of the partitioning ratio varies inversely with the water-temperature, ie. the warmer the water, the less it will absorb. At the current global mean ocean temperature of under 15°C the partitioning ratio is greater than 50:1. In other words, over 98% of all CO2 released into the atmosphere from whatever sources will ultimately be dissolved permanently in the oceans and less than 2% will be left behind in the atmosphere as a permanent addition to the resident CO2 greenhouse. Hence, Henry’s law deems that less than 2% of the approx. 4ppmv of CO2 that Perlwitz says is emitted annually by global industrial civilization will stay permanently in the atmosphere and the rest will go permanently into the oceans. Now 2% of 4ppmv is just 0.08ppmv. I do not see how any claim of a looming man-made global warming crisis can be justified rationally with that trivial annual greenhouse-increment of human-sourced CO2.

So to Perlwitz’s simple question ‘…if Nature was a net source for the carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere, where did all the human carbon dioxide go then?’, we can answer with a high degree of confidence that effectively at least 98% of it has gone into the oceans, leaving less than 2% behind in the atmosphere. It follows too that the remaining 1.92ppmv of atmospheric CO2 required to make up the total annual increase of 2ppmv (assuming that this estimate is correct) must have come from natural sources, Perlwitz’s views notwithstanding.

The bottom line is that Henry’s law blows a massive hole in the alarmist AGW theory below the water-line. No wonder AGW-enthusiasts studiously avoid acknowledging it and are effectively in denial about it.

@ Jan P
“Following this logic, if someone accused someone else of a crime, and I didn’t have any knowledge about prior untruthfulness of the accuser, I should believe the accusations to be true at face value, and I would be the one at fault, if I said the burden of proof for the accusations was on the accuser, and I didn’t believe anything before the accusations to be proven true.”
—
That is just pathetic. Did you read the assertions made by Salby? Did you notice his painstakingly accurate language, sticking strictly to factual, provable assertions and abstaining from any hyperbole, insults and allegations of crime? Also notice that we are not here in a court of law, in which indeed the burden would rest with the accuser; we are not awarding damages or meting out punishment, but just trying to understand a situation. In doing so, we are free to rely on our common sense and experience; if we have any, of course, which obviously lets you out.

BTW I happen to know that Salby’s Macquarie email address had been disabled by the university a few weeks ago (I attempted to email him, wishing to thank and congratulate him for his presentation then posted here on WUWT). The mail was rejected by the university mail server, without any further explanation or updated contact information. To me, that seems of a piece with the Macquarie’s hostile stance implied by Salby’s letter.

dbstealey says:
July 9, 2013 at 2:56 am
Agree with the remedy of legal action. Such action should be taken under U.S. jurisdiction, where there is a better discovery process. Prof Salby was enticed from the U.S.; actions were taken within this country, by agents of Macquarie. Dr. Salby suffered subsequent financial loss and damage to his professional reputation, which the university must be forced to explain. There are ongoing damages being incurred.

As always, if financial support is required to right this wrong, I will contribute. Others here have indicated they will help, too. This is a battle worth fighting.

While I don’t vouch for the link Volcanic CO2 caused ancient episodes of global warming, climatesentral.org I can confirm that that’s a true statement but that it doesn’t hold the complete truth. Volcanic CO2 which cause more than 90% of all CO2 ‘leakage’ (human less then 1%) the volcanoes of this earth, on land and in sea, also is involved when we study ancient episodes of global cooling especially on Northern Hemisphere.

I take it that most of you are aware not only that the temperature in Arctic and Greenland was at least 1 degree Celsius sometimes 3 degree Celsius higher between 980 AD and 1341. Or at least I do hope that Scientist are aware of this?
Even those who like Cook, Bradley, Stoner and Francus, P. 2009. Five thousand years of sediment transfer in a high arctic watershed recorded in annually laminated sediments from Lower Murray Lake, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. Journal of Paleolimnology 41: 77-94. give the figure to 0.6 degrees at the peak seems to understand that it was warmer then. That figure goes for Ellesmere Island.
The acutual figure for Greenland is what I refered to above.Most of the Viking expansion took place during what scientist refer to as the dimatic optimum of the Medieval Warm Period dated ca, A.D. 800 to 1200 (Jones 1986: McGovern 1991); a general term for warm periods that reached chere optimum at different times across the North Atlantic (Groves and Switsur 1991). During this time the niean annual temperature for southem Greenland was 1 to 3°C higher than today.” Julie Megan Ross, Paleoethnobotanical Investigation of Garden Under Sandet, a Waterlogged Norse Farm Site. Western Settlement. Greenland (Kaiaallit Nunaata), University of Alberta, Department of Anthropology Edmonton. Alberta Fall 1997, page 40

What’s especial with ‘Garden under Sandet’? Well from mid 1300’s up to 1990’s that farm was under permafrost due to the many hugh vulcano eruptions from 1341 to 1400. Garden under Sandet had been a large farm even compered with same period in Scandinavia.

You can’t use any measured date from any area closer a vulcano than 1000 km as it was or could be used to indicate CO2 levels rising due to human activity. The same goes for the so-called heating in atmosphere – one need to take all involved variables into consideration. And they are more than 43….. Never seen anyone of the AWG-‘priests’ of this world using half of them….

Btw. on one of the channels here in Sweden earlier today there was a Science program from BBC giving the information that the cold winters in for example US, Canada, and places here in Europe is due to the temperature on the northern hemisphere cooling down the last 50 years caused by vulcano eruptions. Haven’t had time, as you might imagin, to go to the University Liberary here in Gothenburg checking the sources they refered to. But one thing is certain – the weather on Earth isn’t as easy to understand as some using mathematic formulas from Physic laws or Chemical reactions believes them to be…….

I am sad to say that I am a Australian a BLOODY DISGRACE they all have there noses in the trough while shooing away the pigs and don’t forget we have a labour Gov’t who supports the actions by these gooses

I have done a couple of university subjects with Macquarie Uni, I planed on doing further ones, but I think I will forget it now, I really don’t want to be asscociated with a University of this callibre. Why stop at the Dean of Science? Of course if people really want to, rather than email the Dean of Science you can always go directly to the Chancellor’s Office:

JanP;
Why should I have the burden to answer your question “what in Briffa’s paper could not be understood by someone with good math skills and entry level stats?” I do not recall to have claimed that this was the case.
>>>>>>>>>>>>

Sir,
In the thread discussing Briffa’s regional tree ring chronology published some months ago, you made the claim that laymen without an education in climate science could not understand the paper. I put the question to you then, as I do now, other than the collection of the tree ring data itself, what about the paper could not be understood by someone with basic Excel skills and first year stats.

You refused to answer the question unless I answered one of your first.

I answered your question, and though you were active in the thread after that, you steadfastly refused to answer that question. I repeated it several times, and you continued to debate others in that thread, but refused to answer that question.

In fact I was incorrect. It was not one question JanP refused to answer, but two. In fact, for anyone who has any doubts about JanP’s ethical approach to this debate, I suggest the comments in the thread above to be very revealing.

@allencic –
Your experience sounds very similar to mine, except that I was driven out very early in my university teaching career – I taught early American history, and had the misfortune to say good things about American institutions at a time when the going thing among my fellow profs was to obsess over Thomas Jefferson’s sex life (Fawn Brodie, for example), a pure ad hominem attack on Jefferson’s ideas. . I couldn’t get my doctoral dissertation published – my conclusions “were not consistent with prevailing opinion,” as one university press put it. It was obvio9us to me that I wojuld never get tenure unless I surrendered to the thought police, and as a matter of personal integrity I was not about to do that. So after only three years, in 1973 I left teaching and went and got an MBA in Finance and went into a business career. In the historical field, the crap was already in full swing when I was teaching, more than 40 years ago..

“I do not believe anything that comes without the evidence that the assertions were true.”

Then of course, Perlwitz cannot possibly believe in catastrophic AGW — for which there is zero empirical scientific evidence. In fact, as CO2 continues to rise, global temperatures have stopped rising. And not for just a couple of years, but for a long time now.

There is no testable evidence, per the Scientific Method, proving that human activity has any effect at all on global temperatures. None. The planet has warmed naturally since the LIA, and at the same rate of warming — whether CO2 remained low, or ramped up high. CO2 makes no measurable difference to global temperatures, either warm or cold, and CO2 has nothing measurable to do with causing global warming. That is an indisputable scientific fact.

But global warming does have plenty to do with current atmospheric CO2 levels: as the oceans warm, CO2 is outgassed. Thus, the rise in CO2 follows global warming, it does not precede, or cause, any measurable global warming. There is no comparable chart to the one above, showing that CO2 is the cause of global warming. So Perlwitz is flat wrong.

The entire CO2=CAGW conjecture is climate alarmist nonsense, promoted by self-serving government drones. Honest scientists demand solid evidence of cause and effect, but as usual Perlwitz comes up empty-handed. He cannot show that the rise in CO2 is any more than a coincidental correlation: CO2 only appeared to lead temperatures from around 1980 to 1997. The rest of the time, CO2 followed temperature. But the climate alarmists trot out those few years as proof that CO2 causes global warming. That is not evidence, that is only the unscientific assertion of a short term coincidence. Most of the time, CO2 has followed temperature. CO2 is not the cause; it is the effect of rising temperature.

Perlwitz is a mere government bureaucrat, who is terrified that the general public will lose interest in the runaway global warming nonsense he promotes. But that is exactly what is happening. The public is getting wise to Perlwitz’ pseudo-science. They are learning what WUWT readers already know.

I don’t want to hijack this thread with the discussion between me and JanP, so I’ll take this moment to make a point.

If the accusations leveled at Mcquarie are false, then we should expect a swift and blunt counter response. After all, who is going to take a job at the kind of institution that fires you and cancels your return flight when you are on another continent? That accusation alone is sufficient to make first rate researchers think twice about working there, and failing to refute it and other simple to check facts (such as offering a contract and then not registering it) speak as loudly as the accusations themselves.

I’m waiting for the other side of the story, and will listen when it is told, change my mind if the facts warrant it. But so far all we have is the sound of silence which speaks volumes.

Anthony Watts says:
July 9, 2013 at 2:45 pm
Per davidmhoffer above, I’m going to hold Mr. Perlwitz to answering those questions before he gets to comment further on other topics

===============================
Please don’t ban him. People that disagree with the skeptical view is what makes WUWT so great to read. Maybe just a little reminder to him about those pesky questions he won’t answer, when ever he posts and you get that itch.

Prof. Salby can’t expect justice under the Australian legal system nor will he get it by seeking to use extraterritorial courts which would have to have their judgement enforced in Australia! The processes favour those who can afford all the costs and can absorb the stress to which they will be exposed while all the appellate actions take place over the future years. It is a game played by lawyers and there is always another untested or uncertain legal issue which can be teased out of any judgement. It’s point against point: the last respondent standing on the court gets its name on the judgement leader board. Macquarie must win and Salby if he takes them on will find he has all the costs as their outlays are not personal. Even a win will not recoup costs, then there’s another appeal… Been there…

The good news is that so much political action has now been mandated that people are beginning to question why they can’t afford heating or do they really need a fart tax on cows or a hundred other things driven by grreenist AGW lunacy. The best way to fight back is to preserve a livelihood somehow and turn the heat of publicity on the issues. I’m only a layman in this arena but but even I can see the AR5 chart shows a mismatch between observations and aspirational models: 17-23 years without warming is not a compelling justification to increase my power bill. Feynman is much missed at a time like this.

@ Jan Perlwitz: you said “Whatever you expect from me, I nevertheless wouldn’t just accept your claim to be true at face value. Why would I? Just because you make such a claim?”

Answer – simple humanity: that it is wise to be inclined to accept a statement of fact (which the maker knows can and probably will be independently verified) even from a stranger, until the contrary is clear.

And in this actual case the truth will inevitably come out and Prof Salby has considerably more to lose than gain (financially and reputationally) if he has mis-represented the facts of this bizarre affair.

I can’t find the comment by me under the link you provided, where I allegedly said what you are asserting.

[Snip.]

(The comment was easy to find in the link provided:

davidmhoffer says:
October 30, 2012 at 5:28 pm (Edit)
For the record, as this thread shows, I have asked climate scientist Jan Perlw1tz two questions. One in regard to what aspects of the Briffa paper above cannot be understood by someone outside of the climate research field, and the other in regard to the cause of late springs in years with little or no snowfall.

Having been repeatedly asked these questions, and having had ample time to respond, he has not. We are left to draw our own conclusions as to why.

My expectation is that he will not answer the first question because there is nothing in that paper that would require any knowledge specific to climate research to understand, and the second because he doesn’t know.

Note that Mr Hoffer referred to his own questions that Mr Perlwitz avoided, not to what Perlwitz wrote.

As a retired scientist who is living in Australia, I agree with the perception that Australian scientists are prostituting themselves to support the political climate change agenda. I have an ex-friend who now refuses to speak to me because I have suggested that climate change might not be completely human induced. He is a private consultant making his money from environmental freshwater flow programs that assume Australia will be gripped in permanent drought because of human induced climate change. I have another academic friend that remains friendly as long as I don’t question human induced climate change because his major research funding is now focused on how fish recruitment is impacted by changes in the East Australian current due to climate change.

The Australian Government has made some very strange choices of people they put in influential consultative positions. Nobody seems to think that Dr Tim Flannery, who has no qualifications in the field of Climate Science, is a strange choice as head of the Australian Commission on Climate Change. He is a Paleontologist who did his PhD thesis work on prehistoric kangaroos and why the largest Australian mega fauna disappeared about the same time that Aboriginal people first arrived in Australia. To everyone’s amazement he proposed that Aboriginals killed and ate the mega fauna. The government appointed another academic, this time an economist named Professor Ross Garnaut, to .design a carbon tax for his fellow Australians. Professor Garnaut was held up as our great environmental saviour. Nobody has ever mentioned that he was previously CEO of the largest, most polluting gold mine in Papua New Guinea.

We are bombarded daily with information from CSIRO and the government media (ABC radio and TV) indicating that 99% of scientists agree that carbon is pollution (suggesting our carbon based life form is pollution) and human induced Climate Change is going to cause us to perish on a burned out cinder of a planet if we don’t fork over our life savings immediately. From my Australian perspective, I have no problem believing everything Prof Salby is saying.

(Snip. Anthony sets the rules here. You are not the first person he has told to answer questions, there have been several others. So enough with your complaining. Answer the questions, and you are free to comment. That’s the deal. ~mod.)

Before you come down too hard on one side, first look at the evidence from Jo Nova’s posting on Salby’s claims two years ago. When Macquarie University hired Salby it was on the basis of
– “Salby was once an IPCC reviewer”
– “He’s been a visiting professorships at Paris, Stockholm, Jerusalem, and Kyoto, and he’s spent time at the Bureau of Meterology in Australia.”
In appointing Murray Salby as Chair of Climate Science at Macquarie University, the authorities thought they would get a prestigious believer in the AGW theory, who would enlarge the department through attracting more funding and prestige to the climatology department. Instead they were lumbered with a maverick, who fundamentally undermined their funding by becoming an apostate. As Jo said

According to Salby, science is about discourse and questioning. He emphasized the importance of debate: “Excluding discourse is not science”.

What were Macquarie University to do?
A couple of more examples of prestigious institutions being lumbered with mavericks might help them with their plight.
In the early 1980s, the Royal Perth Hospital (in Jo Nova’s home city) experienced a couple of maverick doctors who challenged the scientific consensus on bacteria in the gut, called Barry Marshall and Robin Warren. Embarrassingly for the hospital, they received the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2005. To continue the embarrassment, Nobelprize.org have a photo of these mavericks backing their link to the “Announcements of the 2013 Nobel Prizes”. Naturally, The Royal Perth Hospital tries to hide this.
In my home city of Manchester UK, a couple of Russian mavericks were awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics. Their maverick credentials were confirmed in the citation:-

Geim and Novoselov extracted the graphene from a piece of graphite such as is found in ordinary pencils. Using regular adhesive tape they managed to obtain a flake of carbon with a thickness of just one atom. This at a time when many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable.

They used adhesive tape to challenge well-established beliefs! The audacity of the fellows! That graphene may replace silicone in computer chips is besides the point. Further, my children’s high school backs onto the main Manchester University Campus. For two years running at the annual school awards, my wife, my little babes and I, have had to listen to speeches trying to inspire the youth of today to follow the lead of these people. My favorite quote is from Professor Martin Rees, then president of the UK’s Royal Society

“It would be hard to envisage better exemplars of the value of enabling outstanding individuals to pursue ‘open-ended’ research projects whose outcome is unpredictable.”

That would be the same Royal Society who will, no doubt, deeply sympathize with Macquarie University’s predicament with their maverick scientist.

Chad Wozniak,
It pains me to say that my degrees are from the same university where Lonnie Thompson is on the faculty. Each month I get an email newsletter that nearly always has a short item of Lonnie sitting at the Right Hand of God. You can immediately tell how politically correct and f… up a former geology department is if they’ve changed their name to something like “Earth Systems Science”. This is much like departments that add “Studies” after their name. Unfortunately that applies to both my college education and the university where I taught for so many years. The big difference in when I started teaching and when I left was that at the beginning all the faculty had practical experience in the oil, mining, materials science, the USGS or geological engineering game. In other words, they knew what they were talking about. I’m forever grateful to have worked and learned from those who were genuine mentors to me in the best sense of the word. By the time retired in 2001 all of those great teachers and geologists had retired to be replaced by those whose main goal was to produce publications that no one bothered to read but looked good on their CVs. Something like, “How many trilobites can dance on the head of a pin.”

@julianbre
We are discussing the importance of freedom of ideas on a scientific matter. Intelligent Design is not science it is religion. You are free to express your feelings on a religious blog. Jerry Coyne is right to be concerned about the teaching of crackpot philosophy as if it was hard science, we are having enough trouble getting science done and published as can be seen from this thread. Kia Kaha Dr Salby, as we say in NZ (which roughly means “fight on”)

Was Prof Salby worth his salt at Macquarie University. A single PhD student in 5 years seems paltry! What about undergraduate teaching.. was he pulling his weight there… what about external funding … did he manage to get any. Look at the other side of the coin. If he was that good he would have attracted funding. Don’t get caught up in the hysteria without considering every aspect of his university career.

I should also point out that without exception, U.S. States that allow concealed carry have seen their murder rates decline substantially. The problem is like Bastiat’s ‘things seen and things not seen’. The people who are alive because guns are allowed don’t see that as the reason they are alive. But it is a very real effect, nonetheless.

Get Real,
I think without realizing it you’ve described what’s wrong with the modern university system. Salby didn’t crank out a bunch of PhDs who won’t be able to get jobs? Fire him. No external funding for trivial research? Fire him. He won’t grovel and beg for grants.? Fire him. The quality of his work? Screw that, how hard does he push the silly hoax that is AGW. If he can push that crap make him department head or dean. Or maybe he can be a grifter like Al Gore and Barack.

Ric Werme says:
July 9, 2013 at 11:15 am
Jan P Perlwitz says:
July 9, 2013 at 6:37 am
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ah Anthony, let him post. He continues to break the first rule of hole digging: “First thing do do when you are in a hole is to stop digging.” Surely by now, no one takes him seriously? It is like having comments from Hansen or Mann – just confirms all your suspicions. Ok, first post or two might get some folks attention but after repeatedly shooting himself in the foot, it just becomes Keystone Cops. Let him post, it just gets funnier the more he posts. (OK, maybe my humour sensors are broken – the seriousness of the Salby issue aside.) Maybe you could have moderators simply append the unanswered question to all his posts until you get a satisfactory answer. It would create a neat inside joke.😳

An accusation of crime is not an “assertion of simple fact”, to which Michael Palmer referred. A crime necessarily has two components: (a) the “actus reus” (the physical act, perhaps taking away another person’s property) and (b) the “mens rea” (dishonest intent, such as permanently to deprive the rightful owner of the property).

Well, too bad for you in this case. Whatever you expect from me, I nevertheless wouldn’t just accept your claim to be true at face value. Why would I? Just because you make such a claim? I don’t know you and I don’t know anything about you.

*****

And sadly, this is what is expected of the general public. We are expected to take Climate Scientists (outrageous) claims at face value –despite no scientifically, verifiable, replicable proof to substantiate their theories. Not one, not some, not many, but all of their models/predictions/projections have been laughably inaccurate.

To make matters worse the key players in this corruption of science were exposed (in their own words) in the Climate emails, to be morally and ethically bankrupt.

You raise a great point though, why would any intelligent person believe this nonsense?

What an absurd situation. Anthony Watts and his moderators want to enforce that I answer some question they demand me to answer. And if I don’t they won’t allow any comment by me regarding any other issue anymore.

That means, if they are consequent, they can’t allow any other comment by me forever, since they are asking me to answer a question of the type, “What is your reasoning for your claim you should be allowed to beat your wife?”, which I refuse to answer, since the presumption in the question is already a falsehood.

Unless Watts and Co. retract their demand, it means, bye, bye once more. It was a short new visit here. It lasted about a couple of days, after Watts’ retraction of the previous announcement on his blog that I was a “persona non grata” here.

In citing the two examples of American professors Hedin and Gonzalez, who are suffering professional harassment merely for 1) mentioning (Hedin) and for 2) merely holding the view that what he sees through his telescope reveals intelligent design (Gonzalez), I believe Mr. Bre’s point was that intellectual freedom is under attack in the U.S.A. as well as in Australia.

Neither of the two above-mentioned professors were teaching Intelligent Design theory:

… physics professor Eric Hedin at Ball State University … teaching an honors course on the “Boundaries of Science,” … suggested texts favorable to and critical of intelligent design. …
astrophysicist Guillermo Gonzalez, … never taught ID in class, but … merely hold[s] th[e] view [that the universe was not an accident] … .

[Julian Bre 11:36AM 7/9/13]

Julian Bre did not promote Intelligent Design theory in his post. For all we know, he does not even agree with it.

Why did Mr. Bre’s merely mentioning I.D. offend you to the point that you felt compelled to write such a sharp rebuke? You overlooked a lot of other nonsense in other posts above your comment, your addressing of which would have been worthwhile.

— Please tell your dad (Richard Courtney is your father, I understand?), that this WUWT blogger misses him. Yes, he at times flew off the handle, but his enthusiastic defense of truth in science was usually far more a help than a hindrance to understanding. Tell him that I have been concerned for his well-being and, thus, prayed for him. If A-th-y did not permanently ban him (and I completely respect our host’s right to do that), please tell him to not be a stranger.

@allencic –
Yes, it was bad enough at UCSB even when I was there. The atmosphere seemed to change abruptly with the onset of the Vetnam War, right about the time I first matriculated in 1963, and the resultant taking of sides by the faculty (mostly they went to the enemy side, and even encouraged some of the violence committed by “anti-war,” i.e., pro a tyrannical, brutal, amoral enemy, student radicals). But I’m sure it’s a whole lot worse now. I guess I should consider myself lucky that the university library hasn’t destroyed or thrown away their copy of my dissertation, which was full of heresies about how goos American institutions (in this case the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which established the process for admitting new states to the union) are.

I has a colleague at one of the institutions where I taught who was forever pontificating abou how the Soviet system was so much more efficient, so much more humane than ours in the US. When I confronted this nematode (also a history Ph.D.!) with the 80 millions murdered by Lenin and Stalin, his reply was, “Well, that was a necessary step in reforming society.” Unbelievable ignorance, but worse than that, utter heartlessness – and unfortunately that seems to characterize academia in too many settings today. And it certainly is reflected in today’s global warming alarmists.

I fear that the only solution may come to be that we must physically expel these people from their positions.

God help us from these fools who claim to be climate scientists. When this finally blows up and the public realizes how badly they’ve been had you might want to invest in pitchforks and torches and tar and feathers.

If you are dreaming about pitchforks and torches, tar and feathers against climate scientists, bring it on. I shoot you dead.

REPLY: to Jan P Perlwitz @ 9:31PM And with that comment, threatening to shoot another commenter dead, you have in fact earned a permanent ban here at WUWT.

Congratulations Mr. Perlwitz, you are the first and only commenter here to earn the distinction of a permanent ban by a threat of shooting someone.

And Allencic, you’ve also earned a ban, two weeks, for bringing up the imagery in the first place. While I perceived it as a generalization in jest, something we might see in a Frankenstein movie, it was misinterpreted and brought out the worst in Mr. Perlwitz, so you are not without blame either.

We don’t need anybody making threats of violence on either side, even in jest. Just look at what happened over the “climate scientist death threats” in Australia that got blown out of proportions.

What a resilient, persevering, seeker of truth you are. That was REALLY TOUGH, having your fine scholarship, designed to honor the truth of what Thomas Jefferson believed instead of his human frailties, completely disrespected by your colleagues. GOOD FOR YOU to go on, taking that unjust treatment as a door closed and an OPPORTUNITY to do something else.

Hope all is well and that you and your wife are enjoying lots of good music, laughter, and that fact that, when you sit down to dinner, your dearest is sitting across the table, smiling (well, most evenings, hm? (smile)) back at you.

He is a Paleontologist who did his PhD thesis work on prehistoric kangaroos and why the largest Australian mega fauna disappeared about the same time that Aboriginal people first arrived in Australia.”

His first degree was a BA in English.

“The government appointed another academic, this time an economist named Professor Ross Garnaut, to .design a carbon tax for his fellow Australians. Professor Garnaut was held up as our great environmental saviour. Nobody has ever mentioned that he was previously CEO of the largest, most polluting gold mine in Papua New Guinea.”

Previously, in about 1972, he worked with the Australian and PNG governments to enable the selling of mining rights to international mining companies, in particular BHP-Billiton. To be fair to Garnaut, he did actually manage the mess BHP caused, but still, their environmental record isn’t that good. He was, until recently, the chair of the PNG Sustainable Development Program. He’s just another Gore in sheeps clothing.

Darn, Anthony, I wanted to find out how Jan P Perlwitz justifies believing in CAGW or climate change, or whatever the heck it’s called this week, when he’s so adamant that he doesn’t take anything at face value and without evidence…

…Then again, we really weren’t going to get a clear answer out of him anyway. Good call, then.

I gave Mr. Courtney a two week time out for distributing my email address without my permission related to a comment here he was defending. As a result my inbox was filled with junk from the “slayers”.

I get a lot of mail every day, I don’t need more, especially lectures telling me the greenhouse effect is “bogus”.

I have several of Murry Salby’s videos up on my U-tube account; he is a leader in climate science and in the understanding of CO2.

I will be posting another video in response;
“SCANDAL as Macquarie University
(Sydney, Australia)
attacks Real Climate Science:
Uni Rescinds Contract, cancels air ticket
of “Denier” Climate Scientist,
Dr. Murry Salby – while he is
overseas; stranding him in Europe!”

The Uni heads need to be fired for such anti-scientific behavior.
Its a dark day, but I am sure Murry will go on to bigger and better things.
His book on the “Physics of the atmosphere and climate” is a masterful work in the field.

As I have repeatedly stated here Australian Higher Sxcience Education has become very very very third world rate under the Labour Government. Moves initiated by Hawkins and Keating in the 80’s have basically destroyed all higher science achievement. They haven’t produced ANY major Scientific endeavour since ie Nobel prizes/inventions etc etc in SCIENCE. Do not send your kids to an Australian University.

Thank you so much for your kind post. You made my point more succinctly than I did.

Just read the post about Dr. Robert Carter being blackballed at his own university. Outrages!

People need to wake up. We are seeing this more and more across the whole spectrum of the Sciences and it is very frightening. This really is about academic freedom, even if it’s about subjects you find objectionable. I don’t agree with Edward Witten about string theory or Andrei Linde about multiverses but I would never call for them to be fired for their belief in these theories. And that what it is, a belief. That would be sheer madness. Instead, let the best ideas win, not be bullied into submission by lobbying groups and megalomaniacs.

That’s why I enjoy reading post at WUWT. People here are not afraid to go against the consensus looking for the truth.

From reading the J Perlitz fellow comments above its about time that an “eye for an eye” starts to permeate the skeptical community. That Guy Perlitz does not deserve an hearing here.. well done. Its an extreme case rarely done. Hope other AGW believers can continue to comment here though….

My comment about pitchforks and torches was of course, only a joke. In my minds eye I imagined the peasants in a Gary Larson “Far Side” cartoon going after the monster. I may have used a bad choice of words (it did seem an obvious joke to me) but I still think that when the general public wakes up to how badly and expensively they have been bamboozled by all the AGW nonsense it will not be pretty for the scientists and politicians who promoted this idea and gained power and fortunes based on a lie.

Mr. Watts, since when is the announcement of armed self-defense, in the case that motivated anti-science fanatics among your devote follower herd becomes violent against me and my colleagues is a threat? Isn’t the right to armed self-defense one of the basic principles of your country? You are growing a quasi-religious cult here. I consider it very possible that some “skeptic” fanatics are going to use violence against people and institutions, equally motivated, for instance, as religious fanatics are attacking abortion clinics. It has not been the first time that someone expressed his wish of violence against me or my colleagues on your blog. One example in the past, for instance, was someone named Robert E. Phelan. But be happy, you have your pretext now to make the ban finally offcial, after you and your intellectually challenged moderator friends hadn’t really found any good one before, so that you had to retract your previous one, combined with your pathetic attempt to blame me for it. So, bye, bye, then. I have played enough with you and the other science haters on your junkscience blog.

I am very saddened the Salby situation. I support efforts for him to achieve better circumstances.

A SIDE NOTE: Sayonara Perlwitz-san, I won’t be visiting your site. I am sure there will be fading shades of memories of your past here @ WUWT . . . but surely CSRRT’s Mandia will assign someone to replace your passioned fanatical defense of sacred CAGW gospel here @ WUWT. So no loss with your banning can be presumed.

Allencic I hope you see the irony that in a thread denouncing the supposed (we as yet only have one side of the story) mistreatment of Murry Salby because of his opinions you suggest “tarring and feathering”, however metaphorically, people who dissent with your opinion.

At the current global mean ocean temperature of under 15°C the partitioning ratio is greater than 50:1
andHenry’s law deems that less than 2% of the approx. 4ppmv of CO2 that Perlwitz says is emitted annually by global industrial civilization will stay permanently in the atmosphere

A few assumptions which are not completely correct…
The 50:1 is correct in quantity, but Henry’s Law is about (partial) pressure difference of CO2 between air and seawater at the surface, no matter how much CO2 is in the oceans.
If you shake a 0.5 or 1.0 or 1.5 liter bottle of Coke (closed of course), you will measure the same pressure for the same temperature for the same batch fill.

Any increase in temperature of the surface will increase the outgassing from and decrease the uptake by the oceans. That is based on the increase of pCO2 of the oceans of ~16 microatm for an increase of 1°C in temperature per Henry’s Law. An increase of 16 ppmv in the atmosphere will fully compensate for the 1°C increase in temperature, effectively restoring the previous fluxes of CO2 in/out the atmosphere of before the increase in temperature. The total amounts of CO2 in the (deep) oceans don’t play any role in this…

There is a ~0.8°C increase in temperature since the LIA. Good for ~12 ppmv increase in CO2 in the atosphere. The observed one is over 100 ppmv…

Prof Salby would appear to have been horribly wronged, and it may be impossible for him to get his career back on track. The position of his PhD student Evgenia Titova is possibly even more serious since she lacks Prof Salby’s academic standing which may provide him with some resources for a fightback. I hope the univeristy can be forced to recompense these two researchers but don’t hold out much hope: Dr Mann is still supported by Penn State after all, and CRU at Univ of Norwich protects Phil Jones et al.

There does seem to be a worldwide move in academia to shut down debate, which is appalling and depressing – blacklisting of Israeli academics is another example. What else should a university be for, but pure and unbiased research and debate? They were not founded to shore up the prevailing political whims of the moment. But this skewing of academia towards the liberal agenda has been going on for a very long time now, and will be almost impossible to reverse.

“There is a ~0.8°C increase in temperature since the LIA. Good for ~12 ppmv increase in CO2 in the atosphere. The observed one is over 100 ppmv…”

Ferdinand, the change in atmospheric CO2 is correlated with global temperature, not change in temperature. So constant temperature is associated with the CO2 change.

I hypothesise that it’s the seasonal temperature cycle that’s pumping CO2 out of the oceans. CO2 doesn’t necessarily return to its starting point after one seasonal cycle is over – the exchange coefficients may be different for outgasing and uptaking seasons. The annual change is temperature dependent and at sufficiently low temperatures it’s negative.

Ferdinand, the change in atmospheric CO2 is correlated with global temperature

That is the disagreement I have with Salby (and Bart): a constant temperature increase against a baseline initially increases the output of the oceans and decreases the uptake. But as the CO2 levels in the atmosphere increase, the opposite happens. CO2 releases from and uptake into the oceans are in ratio with the pressure difference between ocean pCO2 and atmospheric pCO2 (~ppmv).
Thus any sustained temperature increase is compensated by an increase of CO2 at 16 ppmv/°C per Henry’s Law, mostly in a few years time.

The huge CO2 movements over the seasons are huge temperature change related movements over the seasons. Without a temperature change over the full seasonal cycle, there is no temperature related change in CO2 release/uptake…

It does matter Ferdinand. You think it would be the same if the ratio was 1:1?

It would be nearly the same (the loss of CO2 from the oceans to increase the CO2 pressure of the atmosphere gives some difference). Once the pressure (~ppmv) in the atmosphere equals the average pCO2 at the ocean’s surface, no net exchange between the oceans and the atmosphere is happening. That means that the (equatorial and seasonal) inflows and (polar and seasonal) outflows of CO2 are equal.

“Without a temperature change over the full seasonal cycle, there is no temperature related change in CO2 release/uptake…”

You don’t know that. If the exchange coefficients are different for the seasonal release and uptake, then there could easily be some net annual change in CO2, even at constant (annually averaged) temperatures. Seasonal changes are are huge and fast. Slight differences in the release/uptake ‘efficiencies’ could cause a net annual change.

Murry Salby’s Hamburg address last April is well worth the hour’s listening and watching. I can’t judge whether or where he is correct or not, but if he is largely correct, the import is massive. His analysis of there being an integral relationship between temperature and carbon dioxide, where it is not the temperature itself but the rate of change in the temperature that is the determining factor, would appear to me to contradict the fundamental assumptions in climate models about climate sensitivity. (This is quite apart from the fairly well accepted fact that carbon dioxide changes follow temperature changes.) This might explain why the climate models have such a poor record of prediction (see Fig 1.4 of AR5, for a quick picture). Further, as I understand it, a major implication of his analysis is that our carbon dioxide emissions are not at all significant in the global energy budget.

As an Aussie living in Canberra, I am well aware of the “group think” about CAGW that prevails among many of the well-educated. I rub shoulders also with many who are not tertiary trained, the man and woman in the street. Many of them are quite sceptical about the CAGW claims and dire forecasts.

For the most part, the media here parrots the official line. Our ABC, our government-sponsored broadcaster, is one of the worst offenders. Yes, I heard the report on the ABC’s lunchtime news, that there was a 50% chance there’s be no human life remaining on the planet by 2100, unless we substantially limit our carbon dioxide emissions, etc. (No, I didn’t choke on my sandwich, fearing for my great-grandchildren!) The report came across as emanating from our Climate Commission. This is what people hear much of the time, this persistent drip of misinformation. My confidence in two friends with whom I’ve had many a solid discussion over some years (and over some good Aussie reds, I must say), has been lessened because they will not even look at some of the key data and countervailing arguments. In my view they have abrogated to others their right to investigate and make up their own minds. Others have written above of similar personal disappointments.

The climate debate is more than a very important issue about the planet and human activity. It has become an issue about intellectual integrity and proper scientific investigation, analysis, discussion and discourse. Determining that the Earth revolved about the Sun was a very important issue, the recognition of which didn’t have much immediate impact on how people lived – but it became pretty handy to understand a little bit later. At the time the really big issue was intellectual integrity and open discussion and debate. That was the elephant in the room.

It is the denial of that elephant that tramples over people like Murry Salby, that is so petty as to withdraw Bob Carter’s honorary status at his own University that he has served so well, and that is so petty as to cancel a non-refundable return air ticket from overseas for Murry Salby.

We will need a cleansing; by that I do not mean a wholesale purging. Perhaps we need in due course a Desmond Tutu to chair a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Science. But certainly, those scientists and other key players who have been recklessly making wild predictions, or mindlessly parroting what they have been told, should be put out to pasture. I am sure there are a lot of genuine scientists who cannot speak up, but they will. Give it time. For I know the reputation of science will recover. But we can’t say in 20 years time about all this, that it didn’t matter, or that it didn’t happen.

2. Termination was because Prof. Salby did not fulfil obligation to teach (refused to show up to teach a class he was scheduled to teach)”

I have not worked in the Australian academic space, but in the private sector. If he was under as much pressure (To conform) as I was just in the number of hours alone, then I would imagine we both felt similarly. I (we?) dreaded going to work! I don’t know of anyone working 110rs in a week and being paid only for 37.5. I resigned too!

Ferdinand Engelbeen (July 10, 2013 at 3:39 am) tells me that some of my assumptions about Henry’s law are “not completely correct” . I am at a loss though to understand why he thinks so.

He says:“The 50:1 is correct in quantity, but Henry’s Law is about (partial) pressure difference of CO2 between air and seawater at the surface, no matter how much CO2 is in the oceans.”

I know. The 50:1 partitioning ratio applies at the ocean surface where the global mean temperature is slightly less than 15°C. If you take the cooler deep oceans into account as well the partitioning ratio rises to over 60:1. So the 50:1 ratio that I stated is conservative.

“Any increase in temperature of the surface will increase the outgassing from and decrease the uptake by the oceans.”

Again, I already knew this. However it is only the net balance of outgassing versus uptake that decreases with an increase of water temperature and the decrease in that balance is small for a small increase in ocean temperature. Consequently the partitioning ratio will remain greater than 50:1 so long as the mean ocean surface temperature does not exceed about 17°C.

“ There is a ~0.8°C increase in temperature since the LIA. Good for ~12 ppmv increase in CO2 in the atosphere. The observed one is over 100 ppmv…”

I can concur with this, although I think it is making a different point to the one that I was making. My point was that over 98% of human CO2 emissions must be going into the oceans because of Henry’s inexorable law. Ferdinand’s point seems to be that ocean outgassing is not sufficient by itself to account for the estimated rise in atmospheric CO2 since the LIA. There is no conflict between these two different points that I can see.

My suspicion certainly runs that way as well. I’m still quite interested to hear the explanation regarding the canceled non-refundable ticket. It’s hard to imagine a plausible justification for that, if the claim is true. Unlike some GISS climate scientists, I prefer to take people at their word unless there is some specific reason to doubt them.

The conflict is here:we can answer with a high degree of confidence that effectively at least 98% of it has gone into the oceans, leaving less than 2% behind in the atmosphere.

You didn’t take into account the time frame: the deep oceans – atmosphere exchanges are limited in quantity which makes that only a small part of the excess CO2 is removed out of the atmosphere. The same applies to the more permanent storage of carbon in vegetation.
That makes that only about 4 GtC/year of the extra 210 GtC (100 ppmv) in the atmosphere is removed into the deep and vegetation. That is about 50% of the human emissions (again in quantity) not 98%… The relaxation time of this removal is over 50 years, the half life time a little less than 40 years.

Ultimately the extra CO2 will be redistributed over the other reservoirs, leading to about 1% overall increase, but that will need several hundred years of time…

I’ve been around academia for a long time, and Macquarie’s statement sounds pretty fishy to me. The key sentence is this: “After repeated directions to teach, this matter culminated in his [Salby’s] refusal to undertake his teaching duties and he failed to arrive at a class he had been scheduled to take.”

What does this mean? He canceled a few classes? He “failed to arrive” at *one* class? Who scheduled him to “take” (strange choice of words) this class? Macquarie could easily have been more specific, but for some reason they’ve chosen to be ambiguous.

University administrations (and individual academic departments) can make life pretty rough for instructors by screwing with their teaching assignments in weird ways: inconvenient classroom locations, classrooms inappropriate to the class size and/or the subject being taught, sudden changes in class schedules, demands that someone teach new classes every semester, refusal to provide TAs for excessively large classes…. The list is endless, and this sort of petty harassment is not that uncommon.

this matter culminated in his refusal to undertake his teaching duties

I read their whole statement which actually fails to address a single substantive issue raised in Salby’s email. One of the issues he raised was being assigned drudge work like marking papers for junior assistants, and if true, small wonder that he resisted. That and other complaints amount to constructive dismissal, and they refuted none of them. Nor did they deny cancelling his return ticket, an action that stands alone as an atrocious way to treat any human being, an accusation that they failed to deny.

The whole thing stinks and macquarie is doing little or nothing to wash the stench from themselves.

I wasn’t going to comment further, but since you mention it, Jan fascinates me because he’s such a caricature of someone’s who’s completely lost touch with objectivity and is oblivious to it, and he’s such an unusually venomous commentator. In a perverse and childish way I will miss Jan around here, obstructive and spiteful as he was. I’d have been happier if he’d actually care to argue substance once in a while instead of derailing tactics. ~shrug~

Professional scientist? If somebody had just described Jan Perlwitz to me without my having read it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed it in a million years. :)

I am too disgusted with the misuse of Universities in Australia by left wing activists of the Fabian variety, and Mr Knit one Perl one of GISS has convinced me it is time I reached into my pocket and used my funds (not the taxpayers funds that have been so grossly wasted!!) in the defence of scientists and the truth of science in this country I love.

I am happy to pledge these funds to finance a legal challenge by Murry Salby scientist and I encourage other true dedicated Australians to give generously as we always do to right wrongs. If Jo or Anthony want to set up a funding account I will be happy to assist.

WE need to show idiots like Perlwitz that enough is enough, the world is NOT their playground to plunder. Climategate was revealing enough, we need to show other scientists that they cannot and will not stand alone when attempts are made to intimidate and bully them in crass attempts to silence or suppress truth.

“The conflict is here:
we can answer with a high degree of confidence that effectively at least 98% of it has gone into the oceans, leaving less than 2% behind in the atmosphere.

You didn’t take into account the time frame: the deep oceans – atmosphere exchanges are limited in quantity which makes that only a small part of the excess CO2 is removed out of the atmosphere. The same applies to the more permanent storage of carbon in vegetation.”

I didn’t take the time-frame of the exchanges between the atmosphere and the deep oceans into account because I was not talking about the exchanges between atmosphere and the deep oceans. The 50:1 partitioning ratio and the 98+% of human CO2 emissions that Henry’s law deems must go into the oceans are conservative estimates that just apply to the exchanges between the atmosphere and the surface waters. If you take the deep oceans into account as well then both figures become bigger – much bigger.

“That makes that only about 4 GtC/year of the extra 210 GtC (100 ppmv) in the atmosphere is removed into the deep and vegetation. That is about 50% of the human emissions (again in quantity) not 98%…”

We appear to be talking about two different things. You appear to be talking about the amount of CO2 that has gone from the atmosphere into the deep oceans since the Little Ice Age. But I am talking about the amount of human CO2 emissions that are ultimately destined to go into the surface waters of the oceans when equilibrium is reached irrespective of time-frames. That is what Henry’s law defines under specific conditions of water-temperature.

The 50:1 partitioning ratio and the 98+% of human CO2 emissions that Henry’s law deems must go into the oceans are conservative estimates that just apply to the exchanges between the atmosphere and the surface waters.

Moreover, a 100% change in the atmosphere is followed bya 100% change of free CO2 in the ocean surfaces (Henry’s Law at work), but only a 10% change in total carbon (CO2 + bicarbonate + carbonate), as the buffer factor (the Revelle factor) comes in, which influences the equilibrium reactions of CO2 in seawater.
Thus the 30% increase of CO2 in the atmosphere did result in a 3% increase of total inorganic carbon (DIC) in the ocean surface layer, a (observed) change of 10:1, far from the 1:50 you expected.

Nick Stokes’ link gives no information Salby’s actual claim. it shows that the University of Colorado asserted “sovereign immunity” as a defence – something that says nothing about the merit or lack of merit of Salby’s case. It’s hard for me to understand why a university should be entitled to sovereign immunity, but that’s another story. However, if universities are entitled to claim sovereign immunity in what was presumably an employment-related incident, then that is one more reason why grievance procedures should be pursued.

Stokes observed that Salby’s apparent non-attendance at a misconduct hearing would be weighed against him in a grievance. Perhaps. We dont know anything about the notice provided to Salby. But that would not necessarily excuse university failures to carefully observe their own procedures. That’s what Salby should be focussing on.

He should also put all AGW issues out of his head pending a grievance hearing, as should commenters here. Of course his opponents will be delighted if Salby doesnt meticulously comply with procedures. So Salby’s job 1 should have been to avoid handing his opponents such opportunities. And in the present situation where he’s already behind, he should be working hard to do the best with the procedures that he still has left.

Anybody working for a university should have his or her computer work continuously backed up at home. Same as you would with paper work such as letters and contracts. Universities are great institutions, but they are also extremely vigorous and effective at asserting their rights in cases of conflicts. At least if you have everything backed up at home you can review the whole history and see whether/when you misstepped, and whether/when the University made what seemed like a promise but have been contingent. Despite their pretensions to the contrary, universities are not different from private companies in the matter of hiring double-talk and then acting in pure self-interest.

As to the case of Murray Salby, I only know what I have read here. But people should not leave themselves open to attack from universities. In this case, the university surely feels that it is the wronged party, and surely feels morally impelled to take the course that it is taking.

Michael Palmer: Did you read the assertions made by Salby? Did you notice his painstakingly accurate language, sticking strictly to factual, provable assertions and abstaining from any hyperbole, insults and allegations of crime?

It is still possible that he is wrong. He may have omitted reference to repeated reminders or reprimands from the university administration, for example, and he may have omitted reference to the fact that some of the “promises” were contingent on this or that. I have been on both sides of a few of these disputes (none so important as this dispute!) and I am confident that no one should be believed before publication of all relevant documents.

This is a professional tragedy for sure, but I am not confident that we have sufficient evidence to call ourselves a jury.

It was my pleasure. You summed up your point quite nicely. That woman mischaracterized your post. Whether it was because she was blinded by her visceral reaction to a perceived promoting of “religion,” or intentional, I do not know. I DO know that she attacked you unfairly and in a such a fierce manner that I felt compelled to jump to your defense (you didn’t really need me, though).

I know how it feels to be attacked like that and to have no one stand up, walk over, put his or her arm across your shoulder, and say on your behalf, “That was out of line.” GLAD to do that for you.

I think I can see where you are coming from and while I respect your right to hold the position on CO2 that you do I do not agree with it and hold a different one myself. Under other circumstances I would pursue our differences further in the spirit of open and impartial truth-seeking but I feel that to do so here would be in poor taste and a distraction from the serious and important subject of this blog – the plight of Murry Salby. So with respect I shall cease discussing this off-topic subject herewith.

11. In February 2013, Macquarie then accused me of “misconduct”,
cancelling my salary. It blocked access to my office, computer resources,
even to personal equipment I had transferred from the US.

12. Obligations to present our new research on greenhouse gases (previously arranged),
had to be fulfilled at personal expense.

14. While I was in Europe presenting our new research on greenhouse gases,
Macquarie undertook its misconduct proceedings – with me in absentia.
Macquarie was well informed of the circumstances. It was more than informed.

15. Upon arriving at Paris airport for my return to Australia, I was advised that
my return ticket (among the resources Macquarie agreed to provide) had been canceled.

If the presentation of the results were fulfilled at personal expense why was the ticket provided by Macquarie? Surely they wouldn’t have been able to cancel the ticket otherwise?

The latest chapter in a pattern, this action left me stranded in Europe,
with no arrangements for lodging or return travel.
The ticket that had been cancelled was non-refundable.

Why the comment about non-refundable, the university would be able to use it to buy another ticket with the payment of a fee?
This doesn’t make sense to me.

As Tallbloke and others have said, Macquarie University’s actions are in the tradition of Lysenko. Coincidentally, until a week ago Australia had a head of government who was justly described as a Stalinist as a well as a believer in ‘global warming’.

A famour Pravda editorial at the time of the Lysenko affair stated that the many scientists who opposed Lysenko “had forgotten the most important principle in science – the Party Principle!” But succesful academics in Australia never forget the party principle. They show the commendable spirit of flock loyalty that has made this nation great, huddling together for mutual benefit in this country that still rides on the sheeps’ back.

Phil. usually those kind of presentation and business trips the traveling costs are payed for well in advance. But notice the University canceled the ticket even though they received no refund. Thus it was out of spite.

Ox AO says:
July 10, 2013 at 10:44 pm
Phil. usually those kind of presentation and business trips the traveling costs are payed for well in advance. But notice the University canceled the ticket even know they received no refund. Thus it was out of spite.

Yes but this was back in Feb. and Salby says that he’d used personal funds. Cancelling a non-refundable ticket usually only costs about $50.

What I tell you three times is true, said AAMilne. This is how government works these days, and this is how universities get cosy with their political support. Hence the science is settled, and the money goes to the fastest talkers, who are generally good at chairing committees or commissions,(the latter better paid).

Our investigation revealed that the subject (Dr Salby), consistently and over a period of many years, violated or disregarded various federal and NSF award administration requirements, violated university policies related to conflicts and outside compensation, and repeatedly misled both NSF and the university as to material facts about his outside companies and other matters relating to NSF awards.”

I haven’t yet made up my mind 100% regarding the Salby issue. But I have made up my mind that Macquarie behaved unprofessionally, at the very least. It would take a lot of new evidence to convince me to change my mind and accept their accusations at this point. I am willing, but they will have to be very convincing. Their past actions do not give much cause to trust them.

Canceling a ticket in order to strand someone at an airport, and then holding a kangaroo court in which the accused cannot be present are two very serious charges. Maybe there is a reasonable explanation; maybe not. So Macquarie must explain fully what was done, by whom, and why. Public opinion will then decide if their explanations are sufficient.

I regularly observe how those in favor are coddled by the “.edu” establishement in general. For example, Michael Mann is the ‘rainmaker’, bringing in $millions. Therefore he is untouchable, and the university has bent over backward to whitewash his wrongdoing. Phil Jones is another example. Actually, the list is quite long. You can just about get away with murder if you are on the uni’s ‘good guy’ list. But step off the reservation, and any pretext is good enough to attack you with.

Dr. Salby stepped off the reservation by not giving his full-throated support to the catastrophic AGW narrative. Worse, he is an apostate — and all religions attack their apostates the most viciously of all. Thus, the burden is on Macquarie to justify its questionable actions.

It is clear that after the uni’s actions, the preponderance of any evidence of wrongdoing rests entirely with the university at this point. But so far, I have seen nothing except vague, un-signed accusations, made after the fact. They have dug themselves a pretty deep hole, and it will not be so easy to climb out of it.

Following the revelations that Salby double dipped into US tax payers funding before he went to Aus, and the self-incrimination of his own email (even allowing for what it leaves out) I am surprised anyone still supports him. Macquarie sound as though they tolerated him for as long as they could while he petulantly did as little as he could.

References to lynchings seem to be fine. Perhaps carrying a concealed weapon does reduce lynchings.

I see nothing tangible in any of those cases. Having a subcontracting business isn’t criminal. They found no wrong doing but fired him for not disclosing all his financial records to the NSF.
The IRS didn’t have a problem with him why did the school?

The worst thing I see there was that he had a divorce in 2002. I really am sorry to hear that. Did he get any speeding tickets? Come on, you need something substantial against him for a good smear.

Galileo was hit with heresy for implying that the Pope was a Simplicio (simpleton).
Today we must turn over all our records and if we don’t it is excommunication.
We are so much more advanced today…. /s

Two earlier commenters, which I leave it to you to find, Ox AO, spoke of lynchings and carrying concealed weapons. If you think that what I wrote was a threat you are particularly thin skinned or lack a basic understanding of the language. On both I fear you are not alone on this thread. I have demonstrated that misreading is easy to do iif you want to take offence.

I forgot something – taking the tax dollar twice. It’s there at desmogblog, who just do what real skeptics do – don’t believe the hype. I’m sure the NSF really debarred Salby on the basis that he was about to out himself as a “skeptic”.

On the face of it he has been denied procedural fairness and the termination of his contract is substantively unfair. And ten there is the issue of retaliation and victimization. If I can be of ay use I offer to assist without fee. Perhaps this can be passed on. The Australian university system is currently an incubator of bullying and management by fear. By the way the success rate for employment reinstatement under the ALP Fair Work legislation and tribunal is 1% . Party of te workers.

Connolly — This American understood you completely. Your typos only underscored how deeply you care. You, unlike an amazing number of posters above, have a healthy heart –as well as a fine mind (your vocabulary and the substance of what you said demonstrate that). And what a generous offer of your services!

The mods will not likely edit your post, so, I wanted you to know that your intelligence sparkled brilliantly, only enhanced by the compassion-driven scriveners errors.

Connolly: In my opinion forums that can not be edited by the poster are good it does exactly what Janice Moore was saying it shows how you really feel about the issues. Typos sometimes not always shows the level of feeling and thought one puts into a post. Your post is a classic example of it.

OX Ao — I am SO GALD that you ‘GOT” WHAT I wmeant! LOL, peole likely thing I don’t proofread — well, as sthis post shwos, I UEUALLy do! #[:)]

I agree. Not only for the preservation of the author’s genuine emotional content, but, for the HUMOR it provides, too. (I should really leave more of mine in, but, too prideful, I guess). There are plenty I don’t catch, though. BTW, I did not manufacture the above typos, just typed faster than my speed-limit!

Dr. Salby wrote, “Macquarie would provide… technical support to convert several hundred thousand lines of computer code, comprising numerical models and analyses (the tools of my research), to enable those computer programs to operate in Australia.”

davidmhoffer commented at July 9, 2013 at 10:46 am, “Computer code conversion – I presume that Dr Salby is talking about HPC code (High Performance Computing) in which case there would very likely be major conversion issues that require trained resources to undertake…”

That might be so, but Dr. Salby’s claim still seems odd to me. No program should be dependent upon HPC extensions for specialized hardware, merely to “enable the program to operate” at all. How could he be able to write hundreds of thousands of lines of code, yet not be able to make it operate at all in a different country, for years?